Friday Night

So its Friday night and we just ate about 9 lbs of sushi. At Kura. We also tried pretzel m&m's for the first time and Aimee was right, we should have never done that because they unsafely addictive. Laying in bed making south park characters out of our friends while our dog farts up a storm is surprisingly more entertaining than one would think on this particular evening. But seriously, Summer, please stop with the gas. This can't be healthy.

I am so glad i have absolutely no plans this weekend and part of me wonders if this what getting older is. A few years ago not having every hour of my time off planned was pretty much equivalent to a waste of life.


I hate when cars that aren't compact, park in compact spaces.  this drives me crazy.

Well that was pointless.

Go Potty.

It's day 2 of semi-unemployment and i'm so f-ing bored. I guess I will abuse the existence of this blog and ( lack of followers) to fill some of my valuable time. Half my day is spent convincing myself that going to Suzie Cakes and sampling every flavor of cupcake is NOT a good idea. This mental battle goes on every hour or so and is usually followed by the struggle to convince myself not to go innocently browse the racks of Crossroads, and that I absolutely CAN live without a pedicure. Gees, what is it with us girls and spending money we don't have.

There are only 2 people in this world who know about the "Go Potty" lady, and for all the rest of you, I am glad that you are not involved in possibly one of the most annoying daily occurrences of my life. Every morning, somewhere in the relm of 6-9 am the angry lady next door takes her tiny little dog outside to go pee. Now keep in mind that in my head this lady is some sort of a mix between Mommy Dearest and Cruella Devile. Instead of letting the little thing sniff around for a few seconds, decide where it would like to mark that morning's territory and go about its business, she stands there and says repeatedly, in the most abrubt, rude, abnoxious, earth shattering voice "Go Potty. Go Potty. Go Potty. Go Potty. Go Potty....." over and over and over until the thing pees. Now let me tell you, when you are trying to sleep it seems like she does this for 20 minutes. In reality, it's probably about a minute straight but my god, do i hate that minute.  She is doing it right now and has been going for as long as it has taken me to write this entire paragraph, which is why i brought it up in the first place. One day I hope someone stands in her bathroom and says go potty over and over again. See how she likes it.

I guess it's about time dish out $90 for some quality eye care at WalMart. Yes, they have eye doctors....right by register 10. I just realized how straight out of Idiocracy that is;  up next: gatorade spraying out your neighborhood sprinklers.

Self-Titled Debut

Last night during one of our embarassingly frequent yogurtland pow-wows a brilliant fellow by the name of Joseph Stapleton made a fabulous suggestion that I start a blog dedicated to my dear Brandon's, shall we call them, Cohen-isms. Little speck's of careless brilliance blurted out by Mr. Cohen holding no other purpose but to provide us with cheek-aching laughter at his expense.

His rebutle: "whatever guys, it's a good thing i have stick skin."

And thus we have the definition of these oh-so-unintentional verbal bollocks.... saying a word that sounds like the right word but definitly not the right word.

From here on out I will make a valiant effort to post only the most hilarious of these occurances. If you have any to contribute, the board is open for comments.

Yesterday Brandon asks me if I want to go out for some lunch. I say yes I'm starving. Where do we go you ask? Ralph's. Well technically, it was the parking lot. Enjoyed a nice gourmet spread of tuna poke and garbage salad globbed in ranch as we sat in the car and watched Iron Man on the iPhone.

Unbeatable view of 17th st. Costa Mesa, really.

Ooooooh the sweet life.

Until next time.... or next -ism, whichever comes first.

VENICE

Venice is the most breathtaking city to see. I completely get why this is one of those top 10 places to see before you die. Our jaws practically dropped off of our heads when we stepped outside the train station and this is what we saw. I guess i just didn't believe all those people and websites, and pictures ... it really is a city built on water. Oh, and not just a regular city, a city comprised entirely of magnificent, elegant, ornate, romantic mansions that are now used in modern times as apt complexes, hotels, museums, businesses, etc.

When we got there of course it was hot as hell and geez were we pumped for a hotel with AC. We found it pretty quick and couldn't help ourselves but to set out on exploration time. Grabbed some quick and delicious lunch at the local mediteranean/kosher restaurant Gam Gam (later stories about this place to come...) and began our trek over literally hundreds of bridges throught the insanely crowded street. Venice is like nothing i have ever seen in that nothing with wheels is allowed on the island. No bikes. No cars. No nothing. Just a TON of people. The canals run through the tiny cobblestone streets and alleys about every 30 steps you take, so yikes was venice a work out.

Much to our surprise the food in Venice was WAY better than any other part of italy we have visited, meaning more variety of ethnic foods and better italian. The pizza was HUGE and delicious and they had these delicious italian tortilla wrap things at all the street food places.

Below is San Marco square. It looks huge and that's because it is HUGE. Around the perimeter of the square are a billion of the typical italian tourist restaurants, super expensive (im talking 10 euro for a cup of joe) but with awesome views and people watching. The thing that set this square apart from the others which we had seen in other parts of italy is that every restaurant had stages with live music all lined up next to each other with grand pianos, violinists, brass instruments, drums, singing, etc. This is why venice is know as one of those elegant and romantic citys.

We didn't realize until we met the wife of an art dealer from the states on one of our train rides that something called the Bianalle was going on during our stay in Venice. The Bianalle is something the likes of which i have never heard of. It is basically a world renowned art festival held in Venice, comparable to the Cannes Film Festival, but with one artist chosen from every country to exhibit their art.Most of the countries are bunched together in the city center with an entrance fee, but others are just scattered about the city held in old mansions, free and open to the public to check out. The Icelandic artists blew everyone else we saw out of the water.
Here they are just two dudes, living in this huge open studio, in their underwear, quietly strumming away at the guitar, drinking Becks, and painting exactly what is going on around them. It truly was a living, real-time museum where u watched them first hand create what is to be eventually sold for around a half million dollars. You can't really see in this pic but all the paintings (prob around 60) are of them in their black underwear doing the most random things.

That right there is one of the guy laying down visualizing himself as he painted his mirror image.

My Brandon in one of the many extravagant cafes.

There is so much to write about Venice, it was an incredible four days spent there. This is to be continued so i can gather my thoughts and Brandon can contribute to our storytelling. Bye everyone, will write more soon, miss you all!

Since we haven't written in so long..... here's a quick catch-up. We spent our last day in western italy in Cinque Terre, specifically the town of Monterossa. About 2 hours outside florence, it is 5 towns all very close together on the hills overlooking the ocean, with a huge hike connecting all of them. We were too hot and lazy to brave the hike, so we opted for laying out on the beach and enjoying some authentic pesto bruschetta and white wine. Thanks for the recommendation Molly, it was awesome.

We met a very nice family from seattle who had just moved to Paris and had some tourist chat, as well as an intersting military couple who gave us some recommendations for our upcoming journey to Venice.
This statue is absolutely incredible and is at the base of what looks like used to be a castle.
Fiesole. This is a tiny tiny little town that sits up in the hills overlooking Florence. If you would like a quiet romantic getaway it would be nice to get a hotel up there and just take the 15 min bus ride into Florence everyday. Definately our favorite view of florence, and the best pizza of the city as well.
NEXT STOP: Venice! Ciao!

Bitch....Slapped...

The Venus...the only one I recognized...gosh I am so unedemacated

We woke up relatively early again on Saturday to make our 10:15 admittance time to the Ufizi Art Museum. The Uffizi is one of those unavoidable traveling mistakes that left us both kicking ourselves in the ass after about an hour. The Uffizi holds the largest collection of Renaissance Art in the world and is one of Florence’s main attractions. Low and behold we come to realize, once we are sweltering amidst the tourist crowds and 30 euros later, neither one of us even likes Renaissance art at all. We rushed to get tickets and avoid the line even though neither one of us even had any particular desire to go. We just felt like we should go see what all the fuss was about I guess. Kinda funny. This is what I learned at the Uffizi:

- You can never wear too much deoderant

- Italian museum curators don’t know jack about the museum they work in

- There is no way all those little kids running around possibly can understand what they are looking at

- Asian people don’t smile in pictures

- looking at 300 portraits of women who look like men is not my idea of a kick-ass afternoon

And most importantly, which Brandon will explain in a moment....

- Do not lose your significant other in a crowded museum unless you want things to get violent

ANYWAY, as I was slowly but surely getting over the 30 Euros or $50 (fucking exchange rate) I just spent on shit I really didn’t want to see AND the fact that they wouldn’t give me an audio tour cell phone looking thing cause I didn’t have my ID, I was aimlessly wondering the Ufizi for at least one painting I recognize. At least to say I saw the so and so right? So there I was, Jess by my side, my hand on her tush where it usually is during normal day to day activities, and as were deciding which paintings to gaze at in pure dissatisfaction …I naturally turned to her, put my hand on her tush and casually said, oohhh The Venus. BUT as I squeezed the tush, to the purest of pure surprises… that one cheek of tush I put my hand on, well…it was the size of Jess’s whole ass. And that tenth of a second I had before a 40 something Italian women turned to me, yelled something in Italian and gave me the best bitch slap I have ever had, I thought…uh oh. It was so awesomely embarrassing for both parties I was left speechless. I tried to use slow and broken English to explain to her that I thought she was my girlfriend and I was pointlessly trying to point in any direction to explain to her in sherades that I actually I have girlfriend and she‘s over there, in that direction, who’s ass I thought was yours…After a minute of literally standing there in shame and awesomeness, I realized it was helpless. I also realized that she might have a pissed off husband that might be heated and I certainly did not want to get into a fight, in Italy, where they take there art more serious than any culture, and if I get slammed against one of these paintings and they blame it on me…well I might be stuck here eating pizza and pasta for a long time. And that just does not sound appeasing. So I got the hell outta there and found Jess.

I found Jess in the other room trying to make sense of one of the religious paintings, told her what happened and she chuckled as if I told her one of my bad jokes. “No seriously Jess, I just got bitch slapped by an Italian lady cause I grabbed her ass cause I thought it was yours! We have to go to the next room, her husband might be here and I don’t want another July 4th incident.” ANYWAY, good times Ufizi. Maybe we’ll come back when were more mature…and I have my ID. Till then…

My Jess boozin in the middle of Florence...no big deal

I had to....

Florence. Good Espresso and Naked Statues

After a sad goodbye with Guiseppe, Conchetta,

Kasia, and Chiara (perhaps!) and four hours of killing time in the Catania airport, we arrived in Florence in the early evening on Thursday. And then there were two. Luckily, and much to our surprise, our modest little hotel was about 100 feet from the main train station so that was key since we were so hot, tired, hungry, and hot. Oh and we were hot. August heat has really brought it’s A-game apparently. Pretty much everywhere we go we look like those sweaty desert wanderers you see on Oracle and Grant, just with half our body weight on our backs and much better hair.

ANYWAYS, we get to our hotel and bad news ensues as we come to find we do not have air-conditioning and we are on the 5th floor with a tiny little oscillating fan circa 1982. Thus we turned to all the beauty Florence has to offer to set us out on the right foot for what really felt

like the beginning of our adventure.

Florence is absolutely stunning. Minus the pickpockets and ex-crack heads relentlessly petitioning against drugs. One of the first plus’ we came to learn about in this city is that you can walk everywhere. It is so tiny, and so jam-packed with beautiful things to see, statues, museums, history… that you can hardly get over the one thing before you are face-to-face with the next. We ended up having dinner at one of those picturesque little bistro candle-lit in the cobblestone alley ways. Delicious food…. Bruscetta, pasta with pesto, mint, mushrooms and some sort of sweet chicken thing. OH, and how could I forget… bonus #2 about Florence, you can walk around the streets with your own 1.50 euro bottle of wine and sit down at a restaurantwith it (or so we think).

The city is divided into neighborhoods according

to what major church it is near, for example we are staying in Santa Maria Novella and our hotel window looks down into the courtyard of this gigantic temple. My point is that the Italians are obviously very religious people, amongst other

things, and these ridiculously immaculate churches are everywhere. The most renowned of course being the Duomo. Today it is the 3rd largest church in the world, and let me tell you it is absolutely

insanely huge. Its almost a joke. The next morning we took a walking tour throughout the church, out up onto the balconys and eventually after climbing about 1000 stairs in what felt like the film set for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, we got to hang out on the very top of the dome

which overlooks the whole city. Bellisimo! Next we went to one of the famous Piazza’s where free-standing statues and fountains dating back to the mid 15th century, including the

slaying of medusa and a replica of Michealangelo’s David. One of the smartest things we have been doing thus far on our trip has been waking up stupidly early, not by choice, more by my insomnia or Brandon’s snoring, because we have been beating the tourists masses by at least and hour or two.

Hey Cheryl, if your reading, the best espresso you’ll ever have made into the best cappuccino you’ll ever have only costs 1 euro here.

After lunch at an awesome little deli/restaurant which my lonely planet directed us to and a quick nap followed by workout on the front lawn of the train station (normal) we decided to get some shopping in. By shopping I mean half “just looking because I could never afford you “shopping and half “ 10 euro’s? I’ll give you 4” bargaining with the street vendors. Florence is insane with their fashion; I have never seen so many well dressed dudes in my life… all serving as serious inspiration for B.Cohen as you can imagine; lets just say a purchase of purple loafers are in the near future. We pass 3 different

Gucci stores before we even get to our morning coffee spot, even the crickety boned old man bumping down the cobblestones on the vintage schwinn is pimped out. I’ll let Brandon write further about this later, but the men’s fashion is incredible and somewhat addicting to explore; its like the Italians care more than anything about looking good whilst not caring at all what anyone thinks.

At night in Florence everyone just gathers in the dimly lit piazza’s, drinking, eating and people watching. After grabbing some quick and cheap chicken schwarma from the kebab place next door we went and sat on the steps of the Duomo with a bottle of wine and joined the people watching crowd. In the other piazza’s and streets on our way there were opera singers, jazz bands, and comedians but where we settled there was just one lonely guy and his saxophone. He was good, and without an amp provided just enough background music permitting us to still eavesdrop on all the travelers conversations around us. By midnight we were tucked in bed with our cans of Heineken and a night cap of How I Met Your Mother on the laptop.