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Sit on the seat directly above the wheels on a bus on the cobblestone streets of Rome. They have these fascinating products here in Italy on the infomercials for these pieces of "excercse equipment" that you sit on, lay against, or relax your feet on that cause immense vibrations through your body. Supposedly they help you lose weight. Instead of spending 99 euro on one of these things all you need to do is take a ride on the bus. Seriously, every part of your body vibrates. Note...beware of the bus if you already have a headache. The cobblestones combined with the pushing and the screaming of children and the amount of PDA is enough to make you vomit.
So, Monday night we decided we shouldn't be lazy and decided to take a walk to Trastevere (it is the section of Rome that is on the other side of the Tiber where the "true Romans" live). Well, we LOVED it over there. Really nice small restaurants. No tourists but plenty to see and do. We're actually going there later tonight to check out an apartment. I hope this works out. So, wish us luck. Oh, the expression here in Italia
is not actually "buona fortuna" but they say, "In bocca al lupo". It means, "in the mouth of the wolf." If you would like to respond to this expression you would say, "Crepi il lupo." Which literally means, "may the wolf die/croak." Love it!
Last night we had a mini reunion of all the people still here after our TEFL course. So the 6 of us all went out for a few drinks. We went to this cute Cafe down the street. Not the internet cafe this time 😊 Although they did see us walking past and yelled out a warm "Ciao" at us as we passed 😊 But this cafe is called Cafe Emporio. It's very swank in there. We really enjoyed it. We invited Davide, our landlord, out to join us. He didn't seem to mind hanging out with 6 lovely ladies from all over the world. But he was great, he made fun of all the Italian guys that were dressed to impressed on a random Wednesday night, and he taught us plenty of slang words and things that we should know in case someone said it to us. We now know that the men rate the women based on a scale in which they say how "squeezeable" a girl is. If they're very squeezeable then she's a pretty nice girl who is nice to look at and he wouldn't mind dating. If a girl is called "busta" (pronounced boost-uh) then she is considered a plastic bag you would receive at a supermarket which the Italians say are full of piss and sh*t. LOL. So, that's not good. After the 30 year old Davide made fun of us for being "old ladies" and convinced us to stay out late, he took us to the all night pastry shop in Trastevere that sells these cornetto that are split down the middle and filled with huge amounts of "panna" which is cream that is whipped with sugar and ricotta. It was pretty tasty...especially at 1:30am. He also took us on a tour of our neighborhood and showed us where to buy bread, pizza, pasta, fish and all the fruits and veggies we could ever need. We took some pictures, so once we upload them I'll add them here so you can all see Davide. He also told us that we'll cook together Saturday night. He's going to text us with a shopping list so we'll be prepared with all the ingredients. I think it's supposed to be tagliatelle with zucchini and something else.
Speaking of food...I think I ate pizza at least once everyday last month. This month, we've eaten pasta at least once everyday. I think I'm going to have to start running or all the weight I've lost is going to come back 10 fold. The food is just too good here...even when you cook it yourself.
I'll write more soon. I may have some really interesting news for you next week. Davide told us that if things go well this week and Roma wins their game, and Inter Milan somehow loses (or some other situations play out) then Roma wins the championship and there will be a week long celebration in the streets. I can't wait. It's a good thing that the owner of this cafe likes us and we can have a reserved spot to watch the game on Sunday. Perhaps the men will start stripping again? We'll see!
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Anthony
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In bocca al lupo
This saying actually comes from an Italian fairy tale, much like our little red riding hood. basically the wolf ate a kid they found the wolf killed it and the child was still alive inside. the reply my Italian teacher told was was supposed to mean "may the wolf burst open." and that's all i remember from Italian class in high school. that and "Scardino!! Che fai!? Cinque cento!!"