Home at Last, Home at Last, Thank God Almighty I Am Home at Last!

Ciao tutti!

Miraculously, Mom and I set foot on American soil Monday afternoon.  I hardly believed it; I didn't believe we were actually home until we landed in SFO.  As we were descending, I kind of expected the pilot to go over the intercom and say something like, "Ladies and gentleman, it seems I've made a mistake.  You see, Monday's we usually fly to Cairo, but I guess they changed the schedule.  Whoops!  Sorry to those of you who were hoping to go to San Francisco.   Enjoy your stay in Egypt!"  But then as the plane descended and I saw the City by the Bay for myself, I finally believed it...we were home!

Most of you heard what happened Sunday; those of you who haven't, here's a quick recap: I got out of the hospital on Saturday, and Mom and I were incredibly excited to finally be coming home!  We were all scheduled to fly out of Florence Sunday morning but all flights were cancelled because of the rain.  (Florence's small airport has to close down when the runways become too slippery.)  In the hands of the ever-so-organized Italians, we ended waiting in lines all morning to sort out the mess of rescheduling everyone's flights, got bussed to Bologna which has a bigger airport, and then waited in lines all afternoon to get our boarding passes to our connecting flight to Germany.   By the end of the day on Sunday, the Lufthansa employees had a very cranky group of travelers on their hands.  We got into Frankfurt Sunday night, had to spend the night in a hotel, and finally flew out Monday morning.  (Italians are a great group of people, but when it comes to getting down to business, I've found that the Germans are much more efficient.)

Sunday morning Mom and I had been very excited--"I can't believe we're going to be home in 14 hours!"  "It's going to be so great to be home!"  etc., etc.  Monday morning, waiting in the airport in Frankfurt, neither of us voiced comments such as these in fear of jinxing it.  

But the point is--I'm home!  And it's been great :)  Next time though, I'm taking the boat.

Love,

Caity

P.S. I think I'm going to write one last "sum it all up" entry if any of you are still interested...stay tuned, if you want!

The Impatient

Salutations!  It seems that the blogs lives on, for my stay in Italy still lives on.   Unfortunately, I'm still here in the hospital.  The doctors keep low-balling me on the dates that I'll be released from here.  First it was last Thursday or Friday, then it was Monday or Tuesday, then it was this Saturday, and now they're talking about making me stay until next Monday.  Although the infection's pretty much gone, they have to give me another MRI Thursday to make sure it hasn't spread to the muscle tissues.  If all goes well, they'll let me out sooner rather than later, but they want to keep me around for a few days to make sure it's gone for good.  I think I'm going to take a stand though (albeit a one-legged stand), and insist that they release me Saturday.  Mom has this silly notion that if the doctors say I have to stay, I have to stay, but I'm on crutches now so I think I'd be able to make a run for it.  What can I say?  I think I've gone from being a patient to an impatient.

I've become sort of a novelty in the hospital here.  By now all the doctors and nurses know I'm American, so they all take full advantage of this fact and use it to practice their English on me. One nurse has formed the habit of exclaiming "Ciao, bay-bee!"  every time she enters the room.  Another one of my nurses speaks fairly good English, and so we talked about the difference between "blood" and "bleed."  "I'm not blood-ing," I corrected her as she patched up one of my stitches that had leaked a bit of blood.  "There's blood on my leg, but that's because I'm bleeding."  Lovely subject matter for teaching, no?

Everyone also seems to enjoy the fact that I'm from California, too.  When two of the nurses were wheeling me to get an ultrasound, they started singing this song in Italian that translates to "I dream of California, I dream of California."  I realized they were singing this to the tune of the Eagle's "California Dreaming," but the lyrics translate a little differently.  "The Eagles?"  I asked.  "Si!"  They exclaimed excitedly.  "I dream of California, I dream of California..."  

While I was getting an ultrasound done today (the cardiologist just had to check my veins and my ticker to make sure deep-vein thrombosis hadn't set in, which it hasn't), the cardiologist told me it was unlikely there was anything wrong with my heart since I'm so young.  

"But we have to check it just in case," he explained in Italian, "for Obama."

"Obama?"  I asked.  "Barack Obama, il presidente?"

"Si!" he replied, smiling.  I told him that was a wise choice, for Barack probably would've made a personal trip out to Italy if the doctors screwed anything up.  I don't think he believed me, though.

We found out today that my teacher from the university is going to be able to come to the hospital tomorrow to administer my final exam to me.  This is actually a fairly exciting prospect, for it means that at least an hour of my day tomorrow will be occupied with something besides checking Facebook and playing Sudoku.  For the oral portion of the examination we can talk about the topic of our choice.  Luckily, this past week has provided me with plenty of subject matter.  I can really wow my teacher with the new medical terms I've learned: antibiotics, painkillers, wound, vein, pain, infection, thrombosis, CT scan, stitches, and my personal favorite, bedpan.

The good news is, the leg really is improving.  The infection's pretty much gone now, and I got to use crutches today!  It was definitely a red-letter day.  I went about 15 yards down the hallway, halfway to the vending machines, but then had to turn around and come back because it made my leg pretty sore.  I took about a two hour nap to recover, and then my mom and I trekked out again, me on the crutches, and this time I made it all the way to the vending machines and back!  I sat in a chair and studied for my final for about an hour, and then my mom and I went out to the vending machines and back--again!  By the third time my leg wasn't hurting as badly as before; I think it just needed some time to adjust to the new position.   Best news about the crutches is that I don't need to use the bedpan anymore--I can go to the bathroom all by myself, just like a big girl!

Good lord.  Rereading that last paragraph is just depressing.  It's kind of pathetic when the most exciting event of your day consists of hobbling to the hospital vending machines and back. I feel like a 90-year-old woman.  I wonder what amazing activities tomorrow will bring...playing bingo with the other hospital gals?  Learning to knit a sweater?

All right all, I'll continue to keep you posted.  I've got plenty of time on my hands to provide you with exciting updates.  Miss you all tons.  It's getting late here though, so I should probably put the computer away and go off to California Dreaming...

Love,

Caity

   

Scrubs

Hey all (I'm foregoing the normal Italian greeting since my brain is about to burst from all the Italian I've been forced to speak in the past week, so I'll just be speaking good ol-fashioned American today).

In case you haven't all heard, I am not in fact home yet as was planned, for I was supposed to be home Friday night.  Unfortunately, a small act that I'd call a combination of optimism and stupidity has landed me in an Italian hospital.  I've been here since Monday and I'm hoping to be getting out of here sometime early next week.  Let's just say I've been a little more than slightly bored...

So the grand story: a group of us all got on the train and went to Lucca, a quaint town about an hour and a half by train from Florence, to go bike-riding.  Well, we never quite made it onto the bikes.  About 10 minutes after our arrival, we found a creek that was actually more like a ditch, for the grass walls (or so I thought) surrounding the creek came up about 5 or so feet.  Two of my guy friends were jumping across it, and I thought, what the heck!  It's much too far of a jump for me to make, but why not go for it!  Worse thing that happens, I fall in the creek and get a little wet, right?  What a great idea!  (This is where the optimism/stupidity comes in.)  So I decide to go for it and turns out, it was too far for me.  Yet it also turns out the walls of the ditch are not entirely made of grass--they've got bricks poking out from under the grass.  So I jump, almost get across, but instead slam legs-first onto the brick and stagger backwards into the water.  I don't really remember a whole lot after that, but my friends pulled me out and an ambulance was called to take me to the hospital to get stitches in my left leg, out of which the bricks had claimed a pretty large chunk.

After a nice round of morphine I was feeling much better and was all stitched up.  They took x-rays and the good news was, nothing was broken.  Seeing as all the doctors spoke Italian, my friends did the best they could translating everything and then carried me back to the train that night.  I couldn't walk on my right foot either because falling backwards into the creek, I must have landed on  a rock or something, because I got a nasty bruise and couldn't put any weight on it.  We got home to Florence okay but I had a restless night that night, feeling a lot of pain in my left leg.  

The next day I still couldn't walk and was in an abnormal amount of pain, so we called my program director, Chiara, who came over to my apartment.  She arranged for me to be taken to the hospital in Florence, where I broke out in a fever.  Turns out I had an infection in my leg, which was causing the fever and the pain.  They told me I'd have to stay in the hospital overnight, and I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect.  Let's just say I wasn't in one of my calmer states at the time.  My leg was hurting pretty badly, so I didn't sleep very well Monday.

My friends came to visit Tuesday, which cheered me up a lot.  My roommate was this elderly lady who asked me what my name was about four different times, forgetting each time that she had already asked me.  I told her I was American and when her son came to visit she informed him I only spoke French.  She'd talk and talk to me, and half the time I couldn't understand a word she was saying.  I guess it was nice to have the company.

Tuesday night, miracle of miracles, my mom arrived.  I'm so grateful to have her here.  She's still my favorite nurse so far, seeing as she's the only one I can understand 100% of the time.   She's been a champ, helping me take care of my leg, talking to the doctors with the help of Chiara's translation, and seeing to it that I don't have to eat solely hospital food.  But most importantly, her presence has been incredibly comforting and has kept me sane this past week.  I'm very, very lucky to have such a great mom.

So the news as of now is that after many rounds of antibiotics, the infection has gone down a lot.  The doctors finally permitted me to get in a wheelchair yesterday so I'm not completely bed-ridden anymore.  (Even though about 15 minutes of wheeling myself around in that thing exhausts me enough to take a 2-hour nap--what happened to the girl who could go on 10 mile runs without stopping for a break??)  MRIs have shown that the infection hasn't spread to the muscles, so this is even better news.  Tomorrow we get the lab results that tell us exactly what kind of bacteria is causing the infection, so we'll be able to use one specific antibiotic that will treat it better than a bunch of general ones than I've been taking.  Oh, and the best news?  Now that I'm in a wheelchair I get to wash my hair for the first time in a week!

So overall, it's been quite an experience and it's still not over yet.  I am very ready to come home, but we have to wait until I'm absolutely cleared by the doctors.  They really can't tell us when, but I'm hoping sometime early next week.  I've definitely been exposed to a lot of Italian; seeing as very few of the doctors or nurses speak English, it's been a fast learning curve.  I don't think I'm quite at the point where I can look back on all this and laugh, but I know the day will come soon; at least, that's what I keep telling myself.  Plus, I did say I wanted to experience Italy, right?  Maybe I should start a separate blog on life in an Italian hospital.  I could call it: "La Vita in Ospedale..."

Okay folks, I'll try to keep you all updated when I can! 

Love, Caity

Reader's Digest Version

Ciao tutti!  I apologize for the lack of contact I've had with the outside world for the past week.  When you get a message from your mom with the subject line "Are You Alive?", you realize it might be time to check in.

I apologize for the lack of detail in the following blog, but as my time in Florence is winding down I'm finding it hard to get to the computer as much.  With finals coming up, I actually have to work studying into my schedule here somehow.  This on top of spending time with the buddies I've made whom I may or may not see again, and squeezing every last little adventure out of this abroad experience like the last bit of toothpaste from a tube.  So if I don't find much time to blog, I'll have to tell you all about it when I get back next week :)

Brief brief brief Recap:

Cruised around in the pouring rain with the S.W.C.T.S. (they picked the best day possible for a walking tour; it hasn't rained  that hard all winter) for some shopping and lunch; headed to Sam's in the evening for a typical Wednesday.  Some apertivs and a good band on Thursday, watched Johnny Stecchino in class and did a bit more shopping Friday and dinner at some classmates' place.  Cinqueterre on Saturday; dare I say the prettiest place I've ever seen in my life?  Donned my Fiorentina jacket; met passionate fans at two different points in the day who congratulated me on my excellent taste in soccer teams.  Saturday night at a disco where a classmate works who got us in for free.  Recovered Sunday at the beach; took a train to the beachtown Viareggio where we relaxed for the day.  Tried to study Monday; failed miserably, went out to lunch then for a run instead, fell asleep early, beautiful day today, grabbed good sandwiches and picnic at the park; volunteering this evening!

Ci vediamo!

Caity

Error: Operator

So in the last post I mentioned how much my English abilities have suffered since I've been living in Italy.  Case in point: I wrote that my cousin Tomasso reads "vicariously" (felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of another) when I meant to say that he reads "voraciously" (exceedingly eager or avid).  Kudos to Dad for pointing that one out; thanks Babbo! The perfectionist in me couldn't let that one go uncorrected.

Ci vediamo!

Caity

Family Reunion and a Floating City

Saluti a tutti!  So much for updating the ol' blog-er-oo more frequently.  Sometimes I find myself struggling a little as I write these, not because it's hard to come up with content to write about, as experiences abroad provide plenty of little anecdotes and tales to recount, but because I feel like the more Italian I learn, the more my English suffers.  I'm not kidding.  I'm finally at the point where I can carry on a conversation with an honest-to-goodness Italian, but I cannot for the life of me speak or write good English anymore.  (See what I mean?)  It's as if my brain has a limit on how many words it can hold at once; thus I lose simple English words at the rate I learn new Italian words.  For instance, it took me a good 3 minutes to come up with the word "purpose" yesterday.  So forgive me if my prose has become a little fragmented; it's probably because I have to pause and stare blankly into space for 10 minutes to come up with the word "fragmented."

So here's the scoop:  Tuesday was volunteering again; luckily Gabri had forgotten about "Cowboys" in favor of "Ring Around the Rosie."  Still not the best children's game on the joints, but at least it's better than "Cowboys."  

This time an 18-year-old girl from Brazil named Laura was there, and I talked to her for awhile.  She was wearing makeup, for she had dressed up as an Indian for the last day of Carnevale.  As I was talking to her, it made me kind of sad.  She's lived in that house for two years with her mom when they came from Brazil.  There's no one her age to talk to, really.  She has her friends at school, but I just think it would be hard to live in that house all the time.  Same goes for all the other mothers.  The little kids don't really know the difference, but some of the moms have been living in Italy for years and still don't speak the language.  They can't get jobs because they don't have documents and they get stuck in a rut, afraid to leave the home because they can't speak the language.  They get bored and desperately homesick.  I just can't imagine living in their situation.  I wish I could do more, but what?  We talk to them and provide them a little distraction, temporarily, but still.  It's one of those situations that I can't really change and just kind of sits uneasily with me when I think about it.  That's life, I guess, but it doesn't seem fair.  I know life is cyclical and everyone has their ups and downs, but I feel like some people are undeservedly handed a lot of downs.  I hate closing paragraphs, essays, stories, etc., without resolutions, and I feel like a lot of these women are stuck in situations that aren't going to be resolved anytime soon.  I guess all we can do for them is try to ease their burdens a little, until things start to look up for them.

On another note, Tuesday night we had some classmates over again for some dolce and vino, and then went out to celebrate the last night of Carnevale.  Probably not the best decision, as I  had a slight headache for the reunion with the S.W.C.T.S. on Wednesday, but I recovered okay.  I met them in Assisi and then we drove up to Pianello di Cagli together, the village in the mountains where the rest of my family lives, and the car ride was slightly hellish for me.  But once I stepped out of the car (or, should I say, bus, because the vehicle that the S.W.C.T.S. had rented was about the same size as a bus) and breathed in the fresh mountain air I felt worlds better.  We stayed at a little bed and breakfast called La Ferraia, where my dad, grandma and I had stayed 4 years ago the first time I went to Italy.  This time there was snow on the ground and the air was bitterly cold, but coming back to Pianello truly felt like a homecoming.

The family all came over to La Ferraia for a huge 4-course dinner.  This family included Ersilia and Bruno who came all the way from Rome, Ersilia's English-speaking brother Tomasso, (or "the philosopher" as we know him--the man speaks 7 languages and reads vicariously and can recite canzoni from Dante's Divine Comedy from memory), another brother named Claudio, another brother named Lucio and his son Rico, and Grandma E's other cousin Ubaldo (an ex-actor) and his adorable wife, Beppa.  Upon seeing me, Beppa burst into tears and wrapped me in a nearly gut-wrenching embrace, crying "amore! amore!" over and over.  When I talked with Ubaldo, he would laugh with delight at the fact that I could actually communicate with him this time.  By the end of the dinner, all my aunts were chatting with the cugini despite the language barrier--it's amazing how much you can communicate with body language, facial expressions, and a few Italian phrases.  All in all, everyone was incredibly warm and loving.  Bruno said, "I feel like I have known you all for fifty years!"  It's no wonder it felt like home.

The next day we went to Pianello, where we hiked up to the house where my great-grandma used to live.  We must have been the talk of the town in Pianello, which has a population of 400.  Our arrival was like a scene out of a Western or a science fiction movie when the aliens come in on their spaceship.  We come driving up in our ridiculous bus, seven women senza mariti (without husbands).  A group of villagers stood in the middle of the main square, hands in their pockets, staring incredulously.    Not a word was uttered.  I waited for one of them to say something like, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us."  But then Tomasso and Ersilia explained that we were the American cugini, and that seemed to clear things up slightly.  It still didn't explain the size of the bus, though.  

Thursday afternoon we drove back to Florence; kudos to Auntie Sharon for navigating those mountain roads.  The S.W.C.T.S. are staying in the town of Sesto Fiorentino, which is a 15-minute train ride out of Florence.  They're staying in an adorable villa that's located in the middle of the city, a vineyard surrounded by a huge stone walls.  

Friday the S.W.C.T.S. was occupied with a trip to Lucca, so I had a free afternoon to go for a run, and then I met up with one of my friends from home who's studying in Barcelona for the semester.  She came to Florence for the weekend to meet up with another one of her friends who's studying here, so it was good to spend some time with her.  I went to bed early Friday because the next day we had an early train to the floating city of Venezia!

I think this was my favorite excursion we've gone on so far.  There's literally nothing like Venice.  The town is completely on water; where you'd normally park your car in your driveway, the Venetians park their boats in the area of water in front of their houses.  There are 150 canals in Venice, and yes, we rode a gondola and he paddled through them.  It was such a cool way to look at a city.  The only thing that would make Venice cooler than it was would be if you could swim in the canal--how cool would it be if you could just open up your windows and dive out for a quick morning dip?  But although the water is a turquoise-blue color, you look down and you literally cannot see anything even directly below the surface. Probably not most sanitary conditions for swimming.

One of my favorite things we did in Venice was the trip to the islands, the names of which have escaped me.  The first was--wait, it's coming back to me-- Morano (that's it!) where they did a glass-making demonstration.  That was awesome; the glassmaker fashioned a glass horse right in front of us, his movements quick and precise.  After the demonstration I told him how impressed I was with his work and he goes, "Well I'd hope so, I've been doing it for 38 years."  Then we got to look at the goods in the glassmaking factory which included all kinds of cups, bowls, trinkets, and even multi-colored glass chandeliers upwards of 50,000 euro.  I tried to take a picture, but the man in the factory shook his finger at me, saying "No foto.  No foto."  Whoops.

Next we went another island with a small church on it, and I still for the life of me have no idea why they took us there.  There was nothing but dead, grassy fields, a dirty canal running through the middle, and a church and a snackbar stand that sold watery hot chocolate.  Oh, and cats.  Literally everywhere you'd look you'd see a freakin' cat.  I have no idea where they came from, but every time you turned your head there'd be another cat darting out from behind a bush or something.  Apparently the island had some significance at one point; thousands of barbarians lived there in ancient times and now there's only 15 inhabitants left.  It's no wonder; I don't think I'd want to reproduce if I knew I'd be bringing my offspring into a place like that.  I don't think I'd want to live on an island that had a higher cat population than a human population.

After visiting the Island of the Cats, we went to an adorable little island with a little lace factory and brightly colored houses.  The rule on the island is, every family has to paint their house a different, bright color.  The houses are lime green, turquoise, red, bright pink, yellow, orange, etc.  The houses that are duplexes are half one color, half another with a precise line down the center.  If it had been up to me, I could have skipped Cat Island in favor of spending more time at the colorful one.  The lace factory was also really nice; there were beautiful lace handkerchiefs, christening dresses, etc.  There was even a huge picture of Elton John with the employees who worked there when he had come to visit on a private tour.

All in all, Venice was awesome.  We got home Sunday night and I met up with Auntie Sharon and the Mamma for dinner at my favorite neighborhood trattoria.  Monday I took the train into Sesto Fiorentino to meet the S.W.C.T.S. for a cooking lesson in the villa.  I'll pause for brief second to wait for all of you to laugh at the thought of me at a cooking lesson.  Casstanza, the woman who works at the villa and gave us the cooking lesson, was very patient with me, despite the fact that I'm 20 years old and still don't really know how to peel a potato.  I could sense everyone wincing subtly as I tossed my mangled (but peeled) vegetables into the bowl.  Despite me holding back the process slightly, we (or they) did manage to make a great dinner: spinach salad with cheese, walnuts, and golden raisins, toasted crostini with sausage and cheese, potato frittata, fried artichoke hearts, multigrain bread, papardelle with vegetable and meat sauce, pork with some kind of delicious sauce, and an apple cake.  Is it any wonder I wasn't hungry again  until past 12 this afternoon?

Allora tutti, I'd better dash--I've got to go to volunteering before meeting up with the S.W.C.T.S. for dinner tonight.  They've been in Chianti for the day, so let's hope they won't be too hammered when I see them...

Vi voglio bene!

Caity

Dimmi Tutto!

The title above is one of my favorite expressions here in Italy.  The Italians use these great expressions for certain sentiments.  For example, when they answer the phone, you'd think they'd just say "ciao," the equivalent of "hello."  But no.  They say "pronto!" which translates to "ready!"  Hearing Italians say this when they answer the phone puts a lot of pressure on me as a caller, seeing as they've just given me a verbal cue that they're attentive and prepared to listen to whatever I have to say, I feel like I'd better have something pretty damn important to say.  Another expression I'm fond of is "dimmi tutto!"  An example of how it's used: for instance, when you approach a person with a question, such as a professor, a friend, or a waiter at a restaurant, you'd say "excuse me, Professor Jones?" or "excuse me, sir?"  And in the United States, the person approached might say, "what's up?" or "how can I help you?" or "yes?" In Italy, they say "dimmi tutto!" which translates to "tell me everything!" I wonder if anyone has ever taken this expression literally.  Bet that professor had wished he had chosen his words a bit more carefully...

I guess what made this expression pop into my head is the fact that I haven't been updating very faithfully this week, so I guess it's going to be difficult for me to be able to remember tutto, but I promise I'll try my best.  It's easy to let the updates fall by the wayside seeing as there's always much to do here.  But as an aspiring writer, I should probably take advantage of this brief time period in my life where I have such a captive audience willing to read my little rants, even if y'all are comprised solely of family members and close friends.  It still makes me feel cool, so I'll keep at it for a few more weeks. :)  

Allora, (another Italian word I love!  You can basically use this melodic little word in any situation; its meanings seem to be infinite.  Allora can mean anything from "well then," to "now," to "so," to "in that case," to "therefore," "anyway," etc. etc.  So the next time any of you are lunching with an Italian and find a lull in the conversation, I'd recommend throwing in a hearty allora; it'll never steer you wrong) God, my parentheses are often so long that I forget what I was saying before.  Let me start over.  Allora, for this post, we'll just stick with the highlights of the past week.  

Sunday at Viareggio: in honor of the Italian month-long celebration of Carnevale (yes, Italians have managed to stretch the event of Mardi Gras into a month-long celebration), we took the train to a beach town called Viareggio where they have a Carnevale party every Sunday.  We dressed up as best we could, layering colorful clothes and donning tacky crowns we bought from the One-Euro Shop (which I can't seem to stop calling the Dollar Tree).  The real Italians were all decked-out in all kinds of great costumes, as Carnevale is basically Italy's equivalent of Halloween.  We spent a really great day in Viareggio, soaking in the sunshine and strolling along the beach.  It was one of those false-spring days that makes you forget it's the middle of winter as you feel the warmth of the summery sunshine.  We returned pink-cheeked and went to a really good Greek place for dinner.  Overall, a good day!

Monday: What the hell did I do on Monday?  I don't even remember.  Proof, I suppose, that not all days abroad are red-letter.  Let's just assume that I did something so terribly exciting that I was completely overwhelmed with enthusiasm and rendered delirious, causing the memory to escape me completely.

Volunteering Tuesday:  The highlight of Tuesday was definitely volunteering at the women's shelter, a little tradition that's become one of my favorite activities here.  Gabri was in full form, wild as usual, and I made the huge mistake of teaching him and Mari "Cowboys."  Gabri is not exactly a thin child, so it definitely required a lot of leg strength to simulate the line "this is the way the cowboys ride" for Gabri, but he loved it and, as expected, wanted to repeat the process about every 5 minutes.  Luckily, I've mastered the phrase "last time" in Italian, a useful expression when it comes to Cowboys.  Valerio (the 12-year-old boy who lives there) and I had planned on playing soccer at the park Tuesday, but the rain rendered it impossible.  He wasn't too disappointed, as he had just purchased a slingshot for 6 euro and was far more interested in finding ways to inconspicuously shoot his fellow residents than in playing soccer.  Luckily his grandma made him get started on his homework, so the sling-shooting gradually subsided.  He needed help with his English homework, and for the first time since I've been here I was actually able to speak to an Italian and be grammatically correct at the same time.  Never mind that we were speaking in English. 

Any Old Wednesday: Had a fairly normal Wednesday afternoon; went for the usual run, went to the park to do some leisurely reading, etc.   Wednesday night was a typical Sam's festa; this time they had an American DJ who played some fun oldies songs.  Alessandro let me work behind the bar, so that made me feel ultra cool.

*Quick sidenote: I'm going to take a dinner break.  Looks like it's going to be a tuna and onion salad again.  Meat is expensive here in Italy, so I eat a lot of canned tuna to get my protein in.  And lord almighty, the onions.  Bought a bag of onions, figuring they'd last me quite a while.  For one of our dinners where we had the class over, my roommate asked if she could use my onions, and I figured she needed all of them.  I neglected to check the fridge before buying another bag of onions the next day to replace the ones my roommate had supposedly used.  Turns out she had only needed half an onion, so I was left with two huge bags of onions.  Thus, I've consumed more onions in the past month and a half than I have in my entire life.  Onions in my eggs, onions in my tuna, onions in my pasta sauce, onions with my chicken, plain old onions sauteed...I haven't reached the point of adding them to my cereal, but if I don't start making a dent in the next few weeks who knows...

Back from the dinner break.  Have onion breath again.  On to the next day.

Thursday--Cappelli e Calcio: My hair's been getting too long to manage here seeing as American straighteners and blow dryers don't function here, even with our adaptors, so I decided to chop it off.  It was a bit difficult to explain to the hairdresser, Salvadore, how I wanted my cappelli cut seeing as he spoke no English, but he did a really good job. He cut it a lot shorter than I had originally wanted, but after staring at myself in the mirror in shock for a few minutes he convinced me that it was molto carina, or cute.  I guess it was my fault for enthusiastically responding "si!" when he asked if he could cut it "come mi piacerebbe," or how he would like it.  But after the initial shock wore off, I've actually started to like it a lot.  Thanks, Salvadore!  After the big cut we headed off to our first Italian calcio, or soccer game!  It was Fiorentina vs. Ajax, Amersterdam's team.  Throughout the day we saw various groups of Ajax and Fiorentina fans drunkenly yelling out all kinds of cheers.  Martina and I tried to learn one, but all I remember was that it consisted of a lot of yelling different words that rhyme with tre, or three.  Who knows.  I think the teachers of our cheer were pretty drunk.  The game was absolutely insane.  At one point a fight broke out, at which a huge wave of fans ran towards the back of the stadium to witness and join the fight, but plenty of carabieneri were armed with their sticks to stop the madness.  In an Italian soccer stadium, there's not a visitor's section for fans from the other team.  There's a visitor's cage.  The visitor's section is literally encased in thick glass, with doors to let the fans out after the game.  This is no friendly Holy Bowl competition where the Jesuit kids and CB kids are free to roam both sides of the stadium.  This is war, and the enemy is kept where you can see 'em.  Italians take their calcio very, very seriously.  It was a close game, but Fiorentina ended up losing 1-0.  It was a sad thing, but we still went out after to celebrate; after all, we deserved a reward for surviving an Italian soccer game.

Friday--A Roman Reunion: There's a place about two hours from Florence called Abetone where people here go to ski, so my classmates had planned on going down there last Saturday for a ski trip.  The week before had been pretty crummy for skiing; apparently it was all ice.  So last week we hoped and hoped for snow, but no luck.  We were bummed, but luckily I had a nice alternative: Friday, the S.W.T.C.S. arrived in Roma!  I decided to hop on a train and meet the 6 lovely ladies in Rome for a much-needed weekend with my mama.  I was so happy to see everyone, and my mom and I shared a very tearful and very joyful reunion.  When I got there, the S.W.T.C.S. was a bit tired, as they had just arrived that morning and had been up for over 24 hours what with all their traveling.  But they were troupers and managed to stay awake all afternoon.  It felt really surreal to see such familiar faces in my little Italian world, and it was really wonderful to see everyone.  We had a relaxing night (a.k.a. they were all passed out by 7 p.m.), which was good for our full day of sightseeing on Saturday.

Saturday with the S.W.T.C.S.:  True to form, Auntie Sharon had mapped out the day's activities for us.  Saturday was a trip to Ostia Antica, a town outside of Rome with really awesome ruins.  Luckily the weather was great, and after the ladies mastered the mysterious art of the Metro and train system with a little help from yours truly, we got there without a hitch.  (I realized as the day went on that I had become the new authority on All Things Italian.  I was happy to answer any and all questions, but I found certain questions such as "Caity, in this Italian commercial that I saw on the subway this morning, why was their a frog handing out money?" and "Caity, why is this one specific newsstand closed today?" a little difficult to answer.)  We walked around the ruins, stopping often for pictures.  Auntie Kathy deemed me the tour guide, so instead of the proverbial umbrella I'd wave my water bottle or the Rick Steve's book above my head.  I had a lot of fun with the S.W.T.C.S., and it was really comforting to be with everyone from home.  That night we met up with Ersilia and Bruno again, and Ersilia insisted upon having everyone over to her apartment for dinner, where she prepared (from scratch) a dinner of fettucine, miniature paninis, breaded pork chops, vegetables, and apple torta for dessert.  As usual, she modestly told us that she wouldn't be offended if we didn't like what she made, but of course everything was fantastic.  We had a really nice time with them, and with Bruno and I on Team Translators everyone was able to communicate really well.  I'm looking forward to meeting up with the whole gang again on Wednesday.

Home Again Sunday: We slept in Sunday and I left the S.W.T.C.S. to fend for themselves after lunch, leaving them to complete Auntie Sharon's itinerary of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain.  Luckily I managed to make a quick escape from the hotel without the employees ever wising up to the fact that I had been a stowaway for the weekend.  In Italy, the hotels are really strict about the number of people in your hotel room.  If you say two people are staying in a room and a third person is found crashing on the floor (as I was in this case), you run the risk of being kicked out of the hotel.  It was a very covert operation, (in my opinion overly covert at times, as I don't think the employees were paying as close attention to my comings and goings as the S.W.T.C.S. seemed to believe), but better safe than sorry I suppose.  After my quick escape I took the train back home to Florence.  Sunday was my friend Martina's birthday, so a few of us went out to dinner at this really small, cozy trattoria to celebrate.  Earlier that day while Martina was out her boyfriend Nick and I tried to get a violinist we found on the street to come to dinner with us and play with her, but he only spoke Romanian and kept repeating "grazie, grazie" in response to our requests and animated body language.  But even without the violinist, I think Martina had a good time.

Monday: Back to Monday again!  Went to class, read a bit, went for a run, and then Martina and I went for a bike ride.  My first time on a bike since December!  It felt good to ride around, and we found a really big park that's down the Arno a ways that should be a great location for future soccer games.  It was a little cloudy today, but really warm outside so we had a good time.  Then I came home and did some homework, which was actually kind of fun and no, I'm not being sarcastic.  Favorite Teacher Michela always gives us cool assignments.  For instance, tomorrow we're presenting the papers we wrote about our hometowns, so I'm excited to bring Sactown to Firenzetown.  Our assignment for this week is to write a recipe from our home country.  I was able to dig deep into my well of culinary knowledge and decided to translate the recipe for a very refined and complicated dish: s'mores.  

Allora, tutti, I'm all blogged out.  I promise I'm going to try to blog a little more frequently so each entry isn't a freakin' tome, and that way I'll be able to dimmi tutto!

Auguri e cent'anni,

Caity