Undici

I dont even know how to spell out the first part...oooona. I can't think of an English equivalent right now. And then dieci, which was explained in the last blog.

Ok, well nothing too exciting lately. Just wanted to drop in, say hello before my long, amazing weekend in which I will not be posting blogs because I will be off having an amazing time with no time for silly things like blogs. More on that later.

Last Friday I went to Assisi for the day, with Dr. Hotness as my guide. Amazing, of course. And thats right, Assisi as in St. Francis of ASSISI. I saw his tomb and everything. Other than having cool earpiece things so we could hear Dr. Hotness and his infinite knowledge of everything, Assisi was a tad boring. It was really really beautiful and the weather was amazing for us, but it is a really small town with a lot of pretty churches. So we toured those, had some lunch and admired the view. I had forgotten that in Northern Italy the bread is terrible because they don't add salt to it, so that was a disappointment at lunch. Of course Alessandro explained to us why they don't use salt because he is so incredibly wise that he would know such things. And now I'll share it with you: when the Vatican took over the Tuscany area for a brief period of time 150 years ago (more or less), they put a ridiculously high tax on salt, so people just stopped using it to make bread. And, even though the tax has since been lifted, they decided to leave the bread salt-less. Which is really quite a shame, because it is so much better with salt. Crazy Tuscans. Anyways, the bus ride there and back was pretty, but uneventful, as was the rest of the weekend. It was really hot Saturday, so I walked around for a little bit but then tried to work on one of my research papers. I chose the most generic topic ever, Baroque Architecture, so I was going crazy with all the information. Its far from being done, but I started. That night I went to the sketchiest club EVER, but it was really funny, so I had a good time. There were the most random people..from like, 15 year olds to way older people. It was very strange.

Sunday, worked on the papers some more and then walked around and finally did some shopping. I actually have some money now thanks to my amazing family, so I treated myself. Everything was on sale, of course, but it was still exciting to actually make some Roman purchases, other than the neccessities. I got some really strange looks though because I had on flip flops. It was so hot though! Of course the crazy Italians are still in winter coats, but I just can't do it. I also went to mass for Palm Sunday that night. We got there at 6:30, when it said mass started but that actually meant they were going to do the entire rosary at 6:30. So, we sat through that and then actual mass. It was so different from mass at home, it was actually pretty entertaining. Other than having to stand up for 30 minutes while they read the Passion, there were funny old women and little kids to watch. And people were just wandering around the whole mass, going to confession, coming and going, whatever..anything went. And of course the church was beautiful, so I had something to look at instead of trying to translate what the homily was about. That night we went to a cute little restraunt near the church and had the craziest old man as our waiter. He kept playing little jokes on us and would just crack up at himself! It was hysterical...he wasn't even that funny, but he thought he was and had this insane laugh, so it was really entertaining. For example, I asked where the bathroom was and was like, sorry we don't have one and starts to walk off. Then turns around and just busts out laughing and pointing at me like he just played this huge prank on me. It was great..then he gave me a high five.

Anyways, this weekend is going to be amazing because I am going to FRANCE!!! I am so so excited! My friend Molly (who is studying in Florence) is coming here and we are flying to Paris to see my friend Katrina, then the 3 of us are going to Cannes to see another friend, Carter. After that, the same 3 are leaving Carter and going to drop off Molly and see our friend Blakely. Then I will be returning to Rome and Katrina is coming to visit here a few days later. I am sooo excited to see them and to see France! I'm a little nervous because I heard French people aren't very nice, so we'll see. More to come on that post-amazing French/Italian adventure. Now its time to work on my papers some more. They are due a lot sooner than I realized...haha.

Ciao ciao!