Hump Day.

Well, if I didn't cave today, I won't cave.

Today it rained. In fact, it's still raining. When it rains here it doesn't just kind of lightly sprinkle periodically, it barfs water for hours. Luckily this does not happen as often as the Milanesi would have you believe.

However it also means I just don't want to do ANYTHING. Rain is terrible like that; it takes away your will to live. I totally meant to go to the pool but didn't make it out of the house til almost 12 (though I did make soup); then the nine flights of stairs up to my English lesson nearly did me in. I was so close to taking the elevator -- it's almost automatic when you know you have to go up 9 flights. My own seven flights seemed like peanuts, on the positive side.

Another positive was that I ate my homemade yogurt this morning and nearly died because it is SO GOOD. Everyone should do this at least once. You will never go back to storebought, I swear.
And that brings me to today's topic of discussion: food. Today we had to renounce all packaged food and consume only local products.
Because life is so hard, I limited myself to things that come in reusable packages (glass, durable plastic), and only ate things from Italy. I don't think i would have eaten too much otherwise. EVERYTHING comes in a package here; at some stores, you can't pick your own fruit from the bin and must bring it home on a styrofoam tray -- even stuff like bananas (which come from Ecuador, so I can't bring thos ehome anyway). I would really like to be buying my grains and beans in bulk, and I think I have found a store at which I can do this; loose-leaf tea made from things harvested in Italy, however, or coffee, is an entirely different matter and I am not too sure I am at the point where I give up caffeinated things because they don't grow here. Individually wrapped cafeinated things -- I can probably handle that.

In short, this is definitely the hardest day, and I can't say I fully succeeded. In fact, I am not sure I ever will, since some things I don't feel I want to do without (bananas and caffeinated beverages aside -- avocado, spices like curry...) Also, I struggle with the packaging thing. There are only so many plastic bottles you want to keep around, or so many glass jars you can wash out and hang on to. The key is finding sources at which you can refill them with whatever it is-- milk, beer, wine for example -- and that can be hard in the city. Maybe this will be the start of breaking my Nutella habit??!

Tomorrow should be really interesting. I am grape-stomping my clothes in the bathtub in honor of "use as little energy as possible" day! I may or may not blog -- I am using my laptop on battery until it dies, then charging it only when I am using it so that whenever it is plugged in, it's also being used, ad when it is off, it is always unplugged. If I have juice at the end of the day, you'll hear about it -- if not, stay tuned for Friday...