Long, long days.

Okay so last night I was not quite up for posting, so I shall attempt to recall the day. I did make brief notes though, and the first thing I have written in Italian class. Hmmm.. I don't remember anything in particular about that, except that it was long and exhausting. I like my teacher a lot, her name is Fiora and she's very nice, but it's still a lot of Italian every day.
For lunch ( which our host mommies all pack for us, SCORE) I usually get pasta from the night before which  is cold, but still good. However, we have a space heater in our classroom (one of the few heat sources), so I decided to let my pasta chill on that to warm up! It worked, except that I got greedy with the heat and halfway through eating it the container fell off of the heater! Sad news. But it was okay, because I got a panino and some coffee after class anyways.
After lunch, we had to do this treasure hunt sort of excersize where we had to run around the city and find out certain information, except that some of the questions were trick questions. Our group didvided us up into smaller sub sections, and I was with my friend Maya, and we had two tasks. The first was pretty easy, just finding out how much a kilo of ravioli fresche cost at a certain store, but the second one was almost impossible! We were told to find the prices of different beverages at a certain cafe, but it turned out the cafe had closed along time ago! The problem was, when we asked people for directions they recognized the name and could give us the general direction but no one knew exactly where it was! Of course, once we found out it had closed it made total sense, but we were very flustered, until finally someone who had apparently been running his store on Via Di Citta gave us the right information.
After that, I met up with Simon and Rachel, and we got one euro slices of Pizza, mmmm... It was good, but one thing about some of the sausage here is that it really tastes like dead animal to me. I know it's supposed to be 'authentic' tasting, and some of it I do like, but some is just a little to strong in a favor I can only describe as dead something or other flavor. Bo. But yes, there wasn't really anywhere good to sit so we ended up having a mini picnic in the doorway of the shop next store, since it was closed for lunch anyways (most stores here close between approximately 1 and 3, give or take).

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After the pizza we did a bit of shopping, later to be joined by Kate. I almost bought boots but didn't, Rachel got a sweater, and I had fun dressing up Simon like a Ken doll, and he ended up getting a sweet lavender sweater (both got them for 9 euros, because of i saldi in geniao). I saw lots of things (especially shoes!) that I liked that were on sale for really good prices, but I tried to hold out for things that I really LOVED since I knew I'd have plenty of opportunities to waste euros. I figure that even if I'm buying things that I truly do like and will wear I need to be careful because I will have SO many options and I'd rather come home with a few things I love than lots of things I like (also because I don't want to drag that much crap home to the States).
After denying many purchases, though, I did end up going for a lovely new leather bag that was on sale for only 25 euros! It's great because it's nicer than my ratty backpack (which I still love, don't get me wrong), and my tiny purses. Huzzah!

Then we found a cafe and split a bottle of wine between the four of us, which is always fun and relaxing at the end of the day.
 At the end of the day I ended up coming home on the same bus as Julia, which was convenient. However, when we got home there seemed to be a good amount of Italian shouting, which we didn't quite understand. We had been warned that this was not an uncommon form of communication in Italian homes, but we hadn't heard any yet so we weren't sure, plus things seemed a bit tense at dinner, but that could have just been our interpretation. Who knows, Italian seem to be a bit all over the place.
Later that night we ended up going out with some friends from the program, which is always fun. One of the Italian league soccer games was on, which I watch sometime with my host family,  and people in bar got really into when it went into overtime one on one shots! When going out, I like to have a couple glasses of wine because it's cheap and it tends to be very easy not to overdo it. Also, the last bus that goes to the stop I want comes at 12:20, which so far is a great time for me; I'm still having fun by the time I leave so I don't get tired out being out and waiting around to leave, it's free, and it's a good excuse to duck out on week nights (or weekends) without feeling like I'm leaving to early.

Now, let's see, what happened today. We had our weekly LC meeting with Karen (the LC adviser) and just chatted and checked in. We also talked a little about this weekend, which is going to be a free weekend but I think a bunch of us are planning on hopping on a train with Karen for a day trip to Pisa!
Then we had a billion hours of class (1-6pm), and afterward a few girls and I grabbed a much needed espresso.
Came home for dinner, had homemade pesto (yay!) and then went out on the town again, which was the same deal with the 12:20 bus. I just got back, so I'm rather exhausted, so I'm going to end this now and if I think of anything else worth while from today I'll mention it a domani.