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Published: June 18th 2011
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Rock on
Davide took this picture of me. Usually I would do a thumbs up thing, But I always do that, so I decided to change up the picture today... Today was a LOOOONG day. No really. Long.
I thought that we were going to Ferrara today, but we didn't end up going for some reason. But because of this, I kind of woke up earlier that I have been the past week so I could get ready. Well, everyone was up, but nobody was ready (well, Elena and Nico were at work, and Lucia was only here doing her cleaning, so Paolo and Claudia weren't ready for anything). So I thought maybe we were going this afternoon, but it didn't happen. So whatever. The fact of the matter is that I got up earlier than usual this morning. Helping it become a very long and exhausting day.
My morning rundown:
--Wake up, shower, eat breakfast
--Talk to Lucia in Italian some (I showed her some family pictures and whatnot)
--Finish reading Clockwork Orange (crazy book by the way)
--Play some Wii (I got destroyed by the computers in all but one game today. I think I'm getting worse)
--Eat some lunch
--Talk to my dad for a while over the computer
--Drink some expresso coffee (here, the coffees are very small--barely enough to fill up a shot glass.
I found Maio!
Have no fear! I have finally found Mr. Maio in Italy! This is really where he is from! There's even a nationality named for him. See? This bottle is "Maio-nese!" Anything bigger than that they call "American coffee", and that's how they order that in the expresso bars. But even this size is extremely small compared the jumbo-sized coffees that we drink in America. I'm grown to like this coffee here... it has taught me how to drink it in moderation!)
--Eat a peach. It doesn't sound very eventful, but the peaches here aren't soft inside like at home, but they have more of the crunchiness of a crisp apple. It was pretty bizarre, but very delicious!
--Other random stuff
Once again, the most exciting ventures happened during the evening and night. The morning is just a relaxation period/warm-up.
First, Elena dropped Paolo and I off in downtown Rovigo, where we walked to the post office and found Davide. From there, we three walked to everyone's favorite music store in Rovigo, Buone Vibrazioni (yaaaaay!). There, Davide and Paolo (and some other friends that joined us there) played around on the guitars for a while, while I tinkered with the electric piano. I played the first part of Fur Elise plenty of times on different sound effects on the piano, and I was getting bored of myself after a
Can art.
Which one is mine, and which one is Paolo's "epic fail"? Keep reading to determine the answer. while. So I stopped.
After we left, we went back to the post office, where magically the number of people there had multiplied by 5! (so there were about 15 people there all of a sudden, just to help you folks who don't like to do math during the summer). Davide and I just sat and talked for a while until everyone decided that we should go eat, so we walked, once again, to Girasole, the pizzeria that I had eaten at every Saturday since I've been here (so it was really weird to eat there on a Friday for once...). Once we arrived, our group of 15 had been narrowed down to only 5: Davide, Paolo, Tommy, a guy named Elia, and Your Humble Narrator (Ok, that term was used in Clockwork Orange a lot, and I kind of felt like using it.) I ordered salsiccia again (sausage) and let me tell you, it was a lot better that Pinocchio's pizza last night. Dang puppets. After our meal, we sat around talking a while and I tried to make some modern art out of my soda can. Paolo tried to as well. I have included a picture.... Which
Davide laments...
He is mourning over a plastic fork with a broken tine while grasping some can art and a plasting knife. Yep. He's my friend. What a keeper. one is mine? (Answer is to come)
We wandered back the post office and at the gelato place nearby, I am proud to say that I was in there ALONE and ordered myself two scoops of gelato on a cone. And the people didn't speak any English to me! (That's exciting, because in the past whenever I try to order in Italian (and notify them I don't speak much of it), the always give me my change and say "Thank you!". How frustrating! I'm in Italy and I want to speak Italian when I have the chance!) So I think I'm actually improving my Italian skills.
After more sitting around, eating gelato, and chewing the fat (a "Catcher in the Rye" term for chatting), Paolo, Davide and I left the post office and walked to Davide's house. From there, we rode with his parents to "Bowling Club Rovigo"-the bowling alley (or center, whichever is correct, because I know sometimes owners are picky about that...) that his parents own and manage. (I believe, at least, that's what they do. Sorry if my facts aren't totally accurate.
When we arrived, I was expecting to walk in the front dor
Bowling Club Rovigo
A picture of the amazing bar that they have here! Cool ambiance and most likely cool drinks as well. and see all of the bowling lanes, spread out from one end of the place to the other, with the bar and the arcade games on the opposite walls. But Nooooooo..... The layout of this place couldn't have been more different than the bowling alleys in America. We walked in to be surrounded by arcade games. We had to walk left around a wall that I thought was blocking the lanes from view, but Noooooo... we walked into the bar area, which was so much more cooler and modernized than the bars in American bowling alleys. Even outside there was a social area and another bar (including the dart-board set-up that we eventually played, me winning all three games. I got really lucky on all of them!). So we walked past the bar towards another room. "Surely," I thought, "the lanes have to be in here." But Nooooo.... more arcade games. I was amazed! Davide looked at me at one point and asked me if the lanes are any different from those in America... I said the whole place was very different from in America, but I don't know about the lanes since I haven't seen them yet. That's when
The lanes
They aren't much different from the American lanes... except these ones are a full story above the ground! he points upstairs... WHAT?!?!?!? the lanes are up there!??!? NO WAY!
So sure enough, we walk up the stairs, and there they are, the bowling lanes. There are only 14 of them or so, but it was still pretty awesome since they are upstairs! Well, we played one game, and I ended up winning that too (They were getting frustrated with me winning darts and now bowling...)(quick fact: Italian bowling terms are the same as in English! Strike, Spare, Gutter, Turkey, etc, it's all the same!) So then we played some foosball and that took care of that frustration of me winning at everything. Since i suck at foosball, it would have been easy for me to give up a win at something (thankfully davide was on my team, but my suckiness brought us both down! Dispiache, Davide!). The Coke can is my can art. We then played some guitar hero and one of those motorcycle games before we decided to head home (it was after midnight). We had spent more time there than we thought!
But now that we are home, and it is 2:15 in the morning when I am writing this, I can tell that my writing is deteriorating and I'm starting to be blinded by my computer screen. So, without anything further to say, buonanotte!
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