Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sunday night everyone was going to go out for a nicer dinner and we planned on meeting at like 6:45. The group left without Ang and I, and we decided we could probably catch up with the group because we knew what the plan for the night was. After wandering for a little bit and not being able to find anyone, we started walking towards the pub. We ran into Jon, Bill, Rebecca, Melissa and Scott. The group of us went to one of the bistros for dinner and Chuck, his niece, Dawn, and her English friend/husband?, Glen, were there as well. The food and wine were amazing. At one point, Glen came over to talk to us. That was funny. Very typical tipsy English man. Chuck also showed us his studio. Beautiful! After dinner, we went to buy some wine. While Bill was at the counter, another English man, Martin, stopped and started to talk to him...and he didn't stop. Again, so funny. He bought all of us a glass of wine, which was nice. Here are some quotes: "We lost! (the revolutionary war)"; (to Jon) "Are you happy? No, are you truly happy?"; "If you ever meet an English man, kick him in the ass." When we finally left, we realized we had left Scott in there with him. Martin physically would not let Scott leave. The bartender had to tell Martin Scott was on antibiotics and he couldn't drink.
We headed back to Liberty, starting drinking some of the wine we bought, and hanging out. We decided to play Circle of Death with wine. That was a good time. About 12:30-1am, we went to the disco-teche. Some people were fairly intoxicated and it was great watching them interact with the Italians. Yeah, that was an interesting part of the night...'Nuff said.
Classes started yesterday and it's going to be interesting. It's odd to me to have the same classes everyday especially because one day of classes here is equal to one week of class in the Lo'.
Last night, a group of us were going to go to this little bistro for dinner, but it was closed so we ended up going to the bistro we had gone to the night before. After eating, we headed to Liberty to hang out with the crew there, and of course, I had to get into one of my fucking moods. I couldn't deal with people and was quite anti-social at that point and I pissed myself off. Now, I was also not pleased that everyone was drinking when we said we weren't going to drink too heavily last night (I don't have the money to drink like that every night). We went to the pub and I decided to have one drink just to help me deal and that led to a double shot of vodka and one other drink. Then Lindsay and I went back to Ilario for the night.
Today, it's raining again, so we didn't do much in photo and Italian may be miserable just because it's long. I will be able to speak it when I come back though, damn it.
Ciao for now. We're going out for Kelly's b-day tonight. I'm sure I will have fun stories.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
I love Parma
Here are the blogs I typed up over the past day about my experience thus far in Italia....
So I’m currently sitting in the Dulles International airport. Yeah. I got through security fine. Murphy didn’t. He was detained and scanned…
…Momentary delay in typing to listen to some of Mr. Olson’s stories. This is going to be fun. From what I’m hearing, the atmosphere is going to be completely different and it’s really going to be an experience. I sat with my photography teacher, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Olson sat in front of us, so I heard a bunch of stories about Italy and otherwise the whole way down. Well, I’m going to go get some food before my flight so I’m not starving. Ciao!
Now I’m in Milan after somewhat of a grueling day/night thing (we kind of skipped darkness). The first flight was about six and a half to seven hours long. I slept roughly three hours and watched 27 Dresses. It was an oven on the plane and I thought I was going to start simmering in my own blood. I was in Amsterdam. Hah hah. Murphy got detained again while going through security. The second flight was only about an hour and an half, and I slept most of the time. We ended up having to land at the northern airport in Milan rather than the southern one (about and hour difference in time) because of bad weather. My guitar was with odd sized luggage, and Mr. Olson had to find it for me. I continually forget that I now have bright purple hair and I should not be alarmed when people give me odd looks—which I’ve been getting a few of. Now I’m in for a 2 hour bus ride where I plan on sleeping seeing how it is about 1 pm here and only 6:27 a.m. in PA.
We got moved in yesterday and went to the supermarket to get food. Slight mistake here. No one that went with us could speak or read Italian. So we wandered around like fools trying to figure out where everything was and what we even needed. We don't have any way to cook at where we're staying so any type of meal is limited by that. Luckily, the cashier spoke English (well, enough to help us out). Everyone came back here, showered and went out to get a bite to eat. Surprise, we ate pizza--which was pretty good.
We came back to the dorms and starting drinking a little. What time was this you may ask--about 7 pm. As we discussed last night, it's funny all the stuff we don't have to do because we can legally drink over here. I played circle of death for the first time (yes I am lame). At about nine, we all got dressed up and headed out for the night. We went to a couple different places and it was a good time. Again, we don't speak Italian so it was an interesting time socializing, but a lot of people knew at least some English.
Well, that's kind of short, but I'm exhausted from jet lag and being out late, so I'm going to take a nap.