12/9: This weekend Julie and I hung out for the first time since Budapest, the weekend after my birthday – early October. The original plan was to go to the Alps to ski, but it turned out to be incredibly difficult to plan an affordable weekend trip to anywhere in the Alps for skiing. Most hotels and hostels aren’t open until December 22^nd or there was a 4 day minimum to stay at the hotel. We ended up deciding instead to have a more “relaxing” weekend. Friday we went to Florence to shop. We were there for about 4 hours and had amazing speed luck. I bought another pair of gorgeous boots (black and suede this time) and lots of presents for people. It started out to be a nice day, but towards the end it was dreary, cold and rainy. Julie and I stopped at a café for a cappuccino; we didn’t realize that drinks were at min seven euro, but the place was Christmas-y and warm, so we bit the bullet and decided to stay. With all our bags we got back onto the train to head home to Perugia. About thirty minutes into our two hour, fifteen minute train ride a huge gypsy family joined us in our carriage. There must have been twenty of them. The part of the family that sat across the aisle from us were just plain dirty. They were eating off the shelf thing on the train near the window, dropping Clementine peels and bread crumbs all over the place. A little boy was sitting over there too. He was very rowdy, and his mon kept slapping him, but he wasn’t listening to her. She finally just went to sleep. Julie turns to me and says, “The kid’s going to hock a loogie.” I thought she was kidding, but I turned to look and his head was back, his throat was rattling and, right there, in the aisle, the kid hacked up everything in his mouth. Truly disgusting. The lady sitting directly across from Julie had the most disgusted look on her face the entire time she was on the train; luckily she had gotten off the train at that point and had missed it. Julie and I could not wait to get off the train. When the train arrived in Perugia we leaped off and ran away from the gypsy family. We saw them talking to some police when we got off, and I hope they were talking about eating and spitting on public transportation. Julie and I had to get stuff from the Big Coop which is across the street from the train station, so we went in, but we saw them there too. After grocery shopping, we found a bus that took us much closer to our apartment than before. I can’t believe we just found this considering we’ve lived here for 3 months and we’re leaving next week (this week). Friday night, Sean and Tom came over to watch some movies. We only got through Mean Girls before everyone was so tired and we had all just fallen asleep on our couches. Saturday morning, Julie and I got up and made bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast. It was our first real/full breakfast since we’ve been here. Every morning prior I’ve eaten cereal. But Saturday morning was a real treat. And we have some left over for Sunday morning. Saturday was a slow day with movies (Super Troopers, Transformers, and Sweet Home Alabama), a little internet, and some homework.

For a couple weeks now, the roommates and I have been thinking about what we will miss in Italia, what we will not miss, and things we are looking forward to at home in America:

Things we will missed: Oggi Porchetta man, good food, living with Julie, Italian MTV, weekly Wednesday dinners, cheap(ish)) public transportation, bells at every hour, Amelie accordion player, shopping adventures, pastries and gelati, Euro pizza and Delle Stella carry-out, Tabbachi lady, Laguna Beach with Julie, the random things you find in stores, knowing you can live without a lot of things I used to take for granted

Not miss: nipple mann (he follows girls and touches his chest), language barrier with every purchase of anything, expensive phone calls, Bambino family, the euro, flower guys

Looking forward to: dryers so clothes fit, food other than Italian, heat more than 6 hours a day, a real bath and shower, Julie for New Years, working internet, convenience, being able to see again (my contacts and glasses have been the wrong prescription for months now), seeing friends and family again and being able to talk to them all

2nd to Last Weekend

10/3: Last week nothing happened worth mentioning. Wednesday, the boys came over and made us Mexican food. I think they made burritos, but I’m not too sure. It doesn’t matter since it was delicious. Thursday, Julie left me. Jeanette, Erica, and I went to Becky’s apartment for dinner. It was like a potluck with lasagna, salad, risotta, and something for dessert. We must have eaten dessert, but I can’t remember what it was. After dinner we hung over for awhile and then went to a pub to hang out with some more friends. Friday was a very uneventful day. I think I spent the entire day watching trashy American television shows on my computer, but I had a blast. I think I needed my fill of bad television since we’ve only watched television once since we’ve been here. That’s been nice because I’m been able to read so many books. When I was in Cairo I realized how many depressing books I’ve read in the last month: 3 Stephan Kings, boy soldiers, biographies on alcoholics, A Clockwork Orange, and now I’m reading a book about Afghanistan. I’ve been on a role! Perhaps something on the horrible human rights problems in China next followed by a book on abandoned babies (Julie made me put that one in). Saturday I had a field trip to Spoleto with my Early Christianity class. Spoleto is a very pretty little rural town. Becky is in my class, and we had a ball there. Especially since she was taking pictures of our teacher who is like an Italian Indiana Jones. We got back to Perugia during the middle of the day, so we gathered up Erica, Jeanette, and a girl I had just met, Jessie, and went to Assisi for the rest of the day. Assisi and the basilica were gorgeous. I’ve never been there during the day time, but at night the church is lit-up and looks so pretty. Becky, Jessie, and I stayed in Assisi a little bit longer, and we went to a little bar. It was so cute and all decorated like Christmas with lights and greenery. After a caffe latte each we got back on the train to Perugia. Erica and Jeanette went to Becky’s for dinner, but I needed to stay at home to write a paper. I got through about half of it, got tired, curled up in my bed with my nice warm, soft blanket and watch a bad chick flick, Must Love Dogs. It is not a good movie, but it made me all warm and fuzzy inside which is always a nice ending to the day. Unfortunately I just couldn’t fall asleep that night. It might have been the caffe latte that night, but I was also preoccupied with other things and couldn’t get to sleep until around 4am. To make it worse at 7:56am I woke up and could not go back to sleep. The silver lining is that I got a lot of homework done very early on Sunday. Sunday was spent all day in the computer lab writing 2 papers, researching for my Italian oral, and working on 2 presentations – all due this week. It was not a fun day, but right now the papers are mostly done, 2 presentations are mostly done, and we have a script for our oral. Sunday night Julie came home and we curled up in my bed and watched one of the best movies for all ages: Milo and Otis. Well, we only got to the part with the bear, but tonight (Monday) we are going to watch more of it! I almost forgot to mention that Bambino’s family was playing very loud music. We think “Daddy Bambino” was playing the guitar and singing; he wasn’t half-bad either. Just very, very loud.