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Published: April 14th 2008
I love living here. I love that we can just walk a few blocks and we’re in the middle of 2500 years of history. Everywhere you turn there is an ancient ruin from the time of Julius Caesar or a fountain by Bernini or a piazza designed by Michelangelo. It’s just amazing, and I really find myself appreciating life a lot more.
School is really getting to be very busy now. We all did homework the entire weekend. I just can’t wait until it’s all over next week. I have to teach three nights this week for class, and I need to do a creative project for the class I teach on Wednesday night.
Friday night everyone from class went out to a bar and to dinner since Nadine Z. and Nadine S. were leaving. They were only here for the first two weeks of class. It was nice to get all of us together. Our one teacher joined us as well. Unfortunately, it rained the ENTIRE night. We walked all over the city in the pouring rain...not fun. After dinner we all went out to a club…only it was a gay club. Not sure where that decision came from. It wasn’t bad though. It was just interesting, and I was quite confused as to who was there just to have fun, and who was there looking for a date, haha. When we walked in, our teacher promptly took off her jacket and started dancing staring at the ripped shirtless men dancing on stage. Mind you…she’s in her 50s. We all had a good time though. Waiting for the bus for 45 minutes in the rain wasn’t fun though, and we got home at 4am soaking wet.
But, probably the worst part, was the bus ride to the club. There was not one spare inch of space on the bus. And everyone smelled soooooo bad, and the soaking rain didn't help. Think wet dog smell crossed with sweaty stinky armpits. Yeah, nice. I feel the need to defend "my people" for a minute here. I know the Italians have a horrible stereotype of being smelly...well, there were maybe 5 native Italians on this bus, including my teacher. It was all the types of people we always see laying on the street vents, or in the soup kitchen across the street from my apartment. So don't think all Italians smell...it's simply not true (well, not in the city anway). Anyway, when it was time to get off the stop, it literally took us 3 minutes to exit the bus because we needed to PUSH our way through the crowd, all while holding a death grip on our belongings, and then we needed to "fall off" the bus. Seriously, guys had to prop open the bus doors for us because there were so many people on the bus that the doors couldn't open. When we got off, we all took a fresh breath of air, and Lauren exclaimed, "Oh my God! The bus just gave birth to us!" That's a VERY good explanation for what happened.
Saturday I did school work all day and then a few of us went out for a quiet evening for a couple glasses of wine. We went back to Campo dei Fiori again. It’s quickly becoming our favorite hangout. Lauren and I got the Roman discount (they didn’t charge us a coperta - cover charge) at dinner because the waiter said he could tell we weren’t tourists. Finally, someone thinks we’re not tourists. My Italian is still horrible though. I really need some practice.
We found out this morning that it’s our favorite barista’s birthday today. His name is Mirco and he turned 26 today. He’s so adorable. We all love him. We’re waiting for the stores to re-open after siesta so we can buy him a birthday card. I actually don’t think we’re going to have much luck. I haven’t seen a card since I’ve been here. I think we’ll end up making one out of construction paper and markers. Today was lesson number 10 for him. We taught him the difference between “Where have you been?” and “Where did you go?” since he was trying to ask us where we went over the weekend.
It’s been a fairly uneventful week really. Sorry to say that I don’t have much more to report. Oh, we did get a new roommate yesterday. She’s really nice. She’s from Austria and luckily she speaks English. We’re still trying to find a new place to live, and I’m getting nervous since we need to move out on the 26th.
I guess I should get back to work now. I’ll hopefully have something more exciting to say in my next post. Wish me luck, it’s going to be a rough week.
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Dan Mangigian
non-member comment
Hi Carla
Hey there. Glad to hear all is going well in Italy. I am enjoying your updates. Keep 'em coming and take lots of pictures. Only thing you're missing here is Flyers in playoffs for first time in 2 years. Please go to the Vatican and pray they make the Cup Finals. Take care.