Day 4. A nice quiet day in Soriano.

Piove Oggi! Quanto triste.

Thats right. It rained all day. The morning started off cloudy and cold even though the forecast printed on our daily hotel journal indicated otherwise. I guess these Italian meteorologists are worse then those in the USA.

I just stayed in and relaxed. I've been having a hard time adjusting to the 5 hour difference so it felt nice to be able to sleep in and recoup a little. The great thing about being on the lower level is that the restaurant is only about 40 feet away. I had a hearty breakfast and studied some Italian.

Then I just chilled out, took a nap, and eventually watched the Dollar depreciate in value against the Euro before my very eyes on BBC news.

Later in the day, I got asked out to dinner by an older couple who are staying here at the resort as well. We eventually ran into some more people who were also staying at the hotel and they joined us for dinner.

I came back, had a glass of wine and finally fell asleep at around 1am. I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a nice day to go out exploring.

Oh yeah, before I forget! There's these sirens that go off throughout the week here in Soriano Nel Cimino. They're loud as hell and go off everyday at 8am, 12pm, 1pm, and 5pm. So finally after a few days of getting startled out of bed by the loud siren I decided to investigate and find out what it was. Well it turns out that I'm in a part of Italy that is run by the "new communist party." Apparently they're not as bad as the communist party before them but they use these sirens as a method of formal control. The sirens were originally installed during WWII as a method of warning the villagers during enemy bombing raids. They would hear the sirens, run for cover, and pray that a bomb wouldn't land on them. Now the "new communist party" use the sirens to tell people when they; should start work, start their lunch break, end their lunch break, and stop working to go home for dinner. "As a matter of fact," the receptionist told me, "if you walk down into the city center you can see signs posted with the hammer and sickle."

I was dumbfounded and flabbergasted! Who knew there was still communism in Italy? Kinda scary.

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