hmm.  how do i start this journal.

well, i went to a cooking class tonight.  but it wasn't your typical cooking class.  giuseppe, the "cook/chef", is an interesting character.  and yes, i mean character.  i need to preface this by saying that there has been a stomach bug going around the program.  so my stomach is so cramped that i can't stand up straight.  and i get kind of queasy.  but i trudged over to chicca's apt for cooking class b/c i heard they were amazing....

well i get there and giuseppe is standing in the window smoking.  fine.  all italians smoke.  a few more people arrived and we started cooking.  we made spaghetti with smoked tuna, some endives stuff, and crepes.  not anything i couldn't have followed a recipe and made, but whatever.  so somehow giuseppe starts talking about politics.  and so for some reason i started listening because every italian has a different view about it.  so i start listening, and yes, this is probably like the first time in 3 months i have actually listened intently to anyone. 

i really don't know how to classify the guy.  he's definitely got some socialist and communist leanings, but yet he's an anarchist and a revolutionary.  but yet all he wants is peace.  so he tells us he and friends or whoever they are are planning a silent revolution.  and this silent revolution is going to march to the government and tell it that it is not working and it is finished.  if the government does not go, then they will make it go.  but in a peaceful way.  like a sit-in.  in the middle of rome.  for months.  ridiculous.  so he goes on and on about this revolution and that millions of italians have signed a petition agreeing w/ it or whatever. 

he hates the government.  he hates political parties.  he hates the mafia, which runs everything in italy, including government.  i don't even remember everything he said when he went off on this tangent.

 then he starts talking about getting shot in the foot at the G8 conference in genoa in 2001.  and that he was beat up by the police protecting a 15 year old.  he did this (the protest) because he hates business.  business is ruining the world and everybody.  business should be eradicated.  ok, so he didn't use a big word like that b/c his vocabulary is limited...to revolution.  i was like, "good for you." 

so there was some cooking in there.

then, next, he started talking about his favorite wine.  it is produced somewhere in toscana by, i have forgotten the name, but i want to call it a commune farm.  he's really into these.  i wish i could remember what he called it, because the "business" he works at is owned by everyone there.  i am drawing a blank.  i will chalk it up to my head hurting like crazy.  but yeah, he basically wants to abandon business for these types of things or whatever they are.

but then he started talking about marijuana.  and how it's natural for italians to have it and grow it and smoke it because it was never illegal until after world war II.  he made several references to smoking it, etc etc.  well, everyone is making crepes at this point.  and he pulls out his bag of pot and procedes to roll himself a joint.  he lights up.  i smell it and i almost lost my whole entire dinner right there on the kitchen floor.  i was pretty queasy after dinner, and smelling the marijuana just made all the difference.  so i ran out of there.  oh my goodness. 

i don't even know what to make of tonight.  i got a politics lesson when i was supposed to be getting a cooking lesson.  and now i know about a "silent revolution" in italy that will take place "soon."  i think he likes to call himself a "peaceful revolutionary."  i think those two words can't go together.  it was just a really weird experience made worse by me not feeling well.  i am sure i will wake up tomorrow morning and add another entry b/c it was just quite an experience.  i personally feel like telling him he's not going to solve his problems this way, but i think he will figure it out himself, and that will probably be when he has a run in with the carabinieri (who look amazing in their winter uniforms, btw).  i'm a little upset b/c i just washed my jeans and now they smell like pot.  yuck.  i will say this though.  he's not a dumbass.  at least he's informed and not spouting stuff just for the sake of doing it.  i don't agree with him, i know that much.  i was totally outside my comfort zone tonight.  right now, i don't know of a good adjective to describe tonight.