Sun

It's been absolutely beautiful the past couple of days. Chilly but beautiful. I've been walking to and from class cause apparently at some point I lost my bus ticket and I don't want to buy another one yet ha. I've been taking full advantage of the park next door and watching little kids feed the swans lettuce and crackers....soooo wonderful!

We went to Piazza del Popolo for carnavale last Sunday! It was so cool! First the piazza is beautiful and has the coolest fountains that are lit up at night. Then there were hundreds and hundreds of people there most with little kids dressed up in the cutest most elaborate and stylish costumes I've ever seen. Then there was a really cool horse show with people like going underneath the horse while it was galloping or doing flips off the side and then getting back on. Pretty amazing. But the main reason we went was because there were suposed to be fireworks and I had wanted to see them since 2 weeks before. But there was just all this horse stuff and we were hungry so we decided to go eat. Which is fine, but as I'm finishing the most delicious pizza I've ever had, I begin to hear fireworks. Of course my friends say "O no those are just drums." Not true. We missed them! But I've decided to be okay with it cause I got tiramesu to make up for the missed fireworks....might have been even better!

My classes are wonderful so far. At first I thought the reading was going to be too much, but it's really interesting and I have field studies in both of them which is wonderful! I start my film class tomorrow which is really exciting, but we had to watch Rome an Open City, soooo sad, as was Bicycle Thieves so I'm afraid that we are going to be forced to make a depressing movie which I really don't want to do. Hopefully that won't be the case. Italian is going well, although I don't quite understand her method of teaching. We usually get a page of lyrics with blank spots and then listen to the song about 6 or 7 times and try to fill in the blank. Either that or we go around and tell her things that we want to learn to say in Italian. But we've yet to go through specific grammar points like all language classes I've ever taken. Maybe this is the Italian way or maybe I'm learning more than I think. We'll see.

I'm going to Florence this weekend with Courtney, Christian, Tyler, Andrew, Melissa, Becky, Jes, and I think two other girls. Courtney and I are going to stay with her best friend so I don't have to pay for a hostel!!! Yahoo! Courtney and I also booked a ticket to Sicily for the last weekened in March! Only 59 dollars round trip! Can't wait. But my goal for the next week is to find a cheap playable ukulele. In my advising meeting we were talking about culture shock and the importance of keeping some things that you did at home. Immediately I realized that the thing that I was missing was playing music! So I need to fix that.

O funny story, yesterday I was walking home from school and I saw a car pull over and a man got out who was obviously flustered and frustrated. He walked around the car and pulled out a 3 or 4 year old girl, I'm assuming his daughter. He takes her behind a tree, but behind this tree was only if you were directly on the opposite side of them, otherwise you could see abosolutely everything. He pulls down her pants and panties and for a minute I thought that I was going to have to say something cause I was getting really nervous as to what was going to happen. Then he lifts her in a seated position and I begin to see the sparkling reflection of pee hahahahaha! All the while she is talking to him in Italian like this is no new way of going to the bathroom. Then he gives her a shake or two pulls up her pants and puts her back in the car. I immediately imagined having to pee while you're driving in the car and I just know that dad could not handler her complaining anymore so ha just pulled over hahaha. Then tonight I had to pee so bad and had a long bus ride ahead of me and wanted so badly for someone to lift me to pee....no one did.

"No human being can really understsand another, and ho one can arrange another's happiness"

I'm so glad I made these quotes of the day!!!

Miss and love you!