I think this is the last time I'll get to write from Verona. I'm holed up in the school's rather warm and cramped computer lab, and luckily for once there isn't a line of people waiting to use the internet.

Life's been good---both in Cinque Terre and in Verona. I'm excited to put up pictures from Cinque as it was BEAUTIFUL, so keep an eye out for that post-Sunday. The hikes were all great--nothing too challenging (not to say that I wasn't out of breath/sweating, but definitely have seen worse on Turner family trips haha), but the views were amazing and the temperature was perfect. Verona's been all about souvenir shopping, taking pictures, watching the sun set on the hill, starting to pack (and painfully discarding clothing), and soon--one last class and final. Tomorrow night we're having some sort of dinner at our apartment (well, which I hopefully can attend--Art History tends to get out later than it should), Friday night should involve everyone going out together (Maybe AlterEgo--Ewwww--but as long as I get to see everyone I should be content) and Saturday is our group's going away dinner. We'll see how many people cry. Eeeks. I really just can't believe it's over.

Anyway, I'll write a closing entry once I get back home, but for now--See you starting Sunday!

On my walk home this morning from Via Mario, I pondered what I could possibly eat for breakfast.

Hmmmm. Don't have any cereal. Yogurt doesn't sound appealing. Oh. WAIT.

I HAVE NUTRI-GRAIN BARS. And Wheat Thins. And Teddy Grahams. And microwaveable soup. And COOKIE DOUGH.

(Maybe not quite on the breakfast list, but it certainly could be)

I know that those of you in the states might not be excited by this. But, oh, I have not seen any of those items since January. Spiego adesso: Yesterday Chris and I met up with April (our classmate whose husband is a lawyer on the military base in Vicenza) and took a wondrous trip to our own Mini-America. Yes, the military base. After using our passports to get past the armed guards we started our exploration in a mall-ish area.

...That had Taco Bell. I hate Taco Bell,.but many many Verona kids were jealous of Chris's meal. I grabbed chicken strips from Popeye's (had almost forgotten the taste of chicken fingers dipped in some good 'ole BBQ sauce) and later a massive, fattening cappuccino blast from Baskin Robbins (had definitely forgotten how huge American portion sizes are). We giddily wandered through the bookstore (bought Jodi Picoult's latest and an issue of Glamour--with American dollars) and curled up on a sofa in a Target-esque store (almost none of our apartments have couches. Or at least not comfortable ones).

The best part was the grocery store. Chris and I (okay, maybe more just me when break-and-bake cookie dough was spotted and I jumped up and down and had to be told to contain myself) were apparently very entertaining to April as we ooh-ed and ahhh-ed over Poptarts, Oreos, peanut butter, Gushers, whipped cream, Hershey's syrup, Dr. Pepper (some of these are not things I was giddy about, but you get the idea...we're deprived kids), Doritos, etc. Our cart was not exactly a bastion of healthy foods. Um. At all. I think we felt more blatantly American than usual.while carrying our loot on the train...all junk food, all American brands.


It was also just crazy seeing so many young men in uniform walking around--also many young families (haven't really seen kids speaking English in months--threw me off for a minute---also threw me off when I realized I was ordering food in English for the first time in 4 months). Clearly the timing of this trip was a little ridiculous--aka 11 days before we're coming home to, er, REAL America---but it was a really nice taste of home. Literally.

We got back into Verona around 6:30. Last night was Jenny's birthday celebration, so Chris and I snagged some of her favorite American treats (Lucky Charms, Oreos, Doritos) for the celebration. A bunch of us just chilled at Molly/Jake's place and then went to Highlander. I think that's the last birthday that will be celebrated here. Wow. Mine's coming up soon.

Going backwards---Literature exam was fine. The vast majority of the questions were straight off of the practice exam, so at least got all of those right. Didn't do any hardcore studying---after seeing Spiderman3 I 'studied' with Jake in Erbe over a Pina Colada and then had Jaci over to stare at our notes later. Pretty much just memorized the practice exam, and I think that was enough. Next: Cinema, which I really should study for today, as there's no practice exam to rely on. Also tomorrow--Cinque Terre. Well, I assume. If I buy a train ticket, etc.

Off to start the day--hope all is well in the states! Not sure how much I'll be able to update from here on out--have given up on my computer, and my roommate's is going home with her parents soon. 10 days. Eeks.

I don't think Spiderman 3 is open in too many places yet in the states (but correct me if I'm wrong)...but, oh yes, I SAW IT TODAY.

BWHAHAHAHAHA.

I love you, Italy.

Okay, guess I should study now...

Friday's Literature was all about a 'practice exam' of sorts---it went terribly...apparently none of us have been listening during class. Ever. That exam is tomorrow morning...need to study at some point. Like...now. We'll see--my study habits have only gotten worse in Italy. Maxine and I had our shopping day, but I bought absolutely nothing. Bershka, a store where Maxine's found some cute pants/shirts, had pretty much all sizes 0-2 in pants, and I found myself wanting to flee the store as I clearly did not belong there. Oof. Sometimes it's easier to forget self-esteem issues in Italy; other times they hit you twice as hard (as this is pretty much a country of perfectly groomed people). We ran into Chris toward the tail-end of our shopping, so after grabbing kebabs wound up at Mario for a viewing of Old School (which I had never seen before). After our weekly download of The Office Maxine and I went back to Mario to hang out with Chris, Jake, Jaci, and her friend Deirdre and Piazza Erbe-ed it up together.

My computer's still utterly broken and there's no sign of the disc that might repair it (I'm not feeling too optimistic), but luckily Maxine is being very generous with her computer. No matter what happens...I think the purchase of a Mac is going to have to happen once I'm stateside. Not going to be recommending Toshiba anytime soon, much as I love my computer when it's not breaking down.

Going back to Monday---the test was fine. I had Art History in the morning, and after class a few of us (Kelly, Sheila, Jake, I) just went to Zac Cafe to look over our notes/snack/have a beer. I was still in my usual nervous-Elena-state, but everyone who came out said that it was easy, just like having a conversation, etc...so wasn't quite up to my shaking-sweating-panic state. I don't think I spoke amazingly or anything, but both Maurizio and Emmanuela are so nice that it didn't feel too stressful. Talked about the last time I had talked to my family, I spit out some 'vacation by the sea' vocab (salvagente was a hit), told my 'racconto' about the lake house. Probably well under 10 minutes.

Monday night was deemed "Byrnes' Birthday Blackout" aka Danny's 21st celebration. Pretty much the entire group made it out at some point---all wearing black whilst Danny donned a white t-shirt with messages from everyone. I'll just say that I drank far too much, and that Literature the next day was just a terrible situation, but I suppose everyone has to have at least one night like that in their life?

Obviously there are more things. And many of them would probably involve more food (and, yes, people), so I'll stop there. We all have definitely started to bring up things we miss in the states more, but we also start way too many sentences with "Can you believe we're leaving in 3 weeks? I'm going to miss..."---so basically our goodbye dinner is predicted to be a drunken sobfest.

Nothing too big to share from this past week in Verona. It felt more class-centered than usual---had all of my classes (and Cinema twice). In Cinema we watched L'Ultimo Bacio (the movie our The Last Kiss was completely based off of)...it frustrated me in Italian, too, and I'm pretty sure my teacher just thought I was naive for disliking the protagonist/thinking he was an immature jerk. Eh, I know there are some cultural differences, but I don't feel like 30-year-old-cheating-on-pregnant-fiancee-because-he's-terrified-of-everyday-life felt too sympathetic to any of my friends, either. Stefano Accorsi is very attractive--that's about all I got from the movie (although I already knew that from Saturno Contro and Le Fate Ignoranti).

On Thursday we had a big dinner over at Maria and Mo's--everyone brought something and we just feasted/chatted it up for a few hours. They only live 3 minutes from me, so I was very happy to attend; a nice break from the usual 30 minute walk it takes to socialize. Friday was all about Art History. We met at the train station at 1:30PM and didn't get back to Verona until 10:30PM. Ooof. Kind of annoyed I'm still expected to go to class on Monday. Padova looks like a very nice town (and it houses the 2nd oldest university in Europe, so we actually saw people in our age-ish), but we pretty much just did a brief tour of the university, visited St. Anthony (2nd largest church in Italy) and saw some relics (aka Anthony's tongue, jaw, 'vocal apparatus', etc), and went to see some of Giotto's paintings. At the university there was a statue of the first woman to ever graduate university. What was her name, you ask? Elena. Naturally. We also saw recent graduates being humiliated by their friends near the university---when you graduate your friends make you a poster with all your inside jokes together/pictures of you/caricatures, etc. While you read it they dress you up ridiculously and pelt you with flour/eggs/marinara sauce, etc...we saw one guy during his 'celebration' and then afterward with his friends at a cafe (all cleaned up). Looks like a fun tradition (that I would never want to be the subject of).


I spent today being lazy (watching The Holiday, catching up on Grey's) and doing a smidgen of studying (aka checking out the park 10 minutes from my apartment, sitting and writing out words, reading The Virgin Suicides whilst lazing near the playground). Met up with Andrea, Laura, and Jake around 8:30 to go out to dinner. We found a nice restaurant where we could sit outside near the Bra, and after that we stopped by a bar near Erbe for a drink. Annnnnd now I'm home. :)

I'm off to bed--have to get some actual studying  done tomorrow, or at least decide what I want to talk about for the '5 minute story' portion of the exam. Ciao!

Prague was the first outside-of-Italy trip I ever booked. Since January it’s been on my calendar, but it always felt sooo far away. And then I got back from Lisbon, only to have 2 days in Verona and pack up and leave for the Czech Republic. On Wednesday Dan, Andrea, and I didn’t get to our hostel until pretty late, so we just checked in and then headed down to the hostel bar. Pilsner is made in the Czech Republic, so obviously we had to start off our trip with 2 rounds of that. Beer’s certainly not my favorite beverage, but as Dan had informed me months before that I had better be ready to eat sausage and drink beer in Prague…I went with it. Once we found Sour Cherry and Coffee beer I was much happier to join in.

We started our first day in Prague at Kava Kava Kava, a coffeeshop a few tram stops from our hostel. I ordered my first cup of filtered coffee accompanied by a bagel (they don’t even ask you what kind you want; apparently if you like one kind of bagel you like them all?)…suddenly had very warm feelings toward Prague. After breakfast we walked over to the center of town and wandered through the markets. Andrea and I each bought amber rings (I’ve never been good about buying myself souvenirs—as of now I think I have necklaces from Murano, this ring, and a “Czech Me Out” t-shirt) and we ate yummy food for lunch (shishkebabs, potato pancakes) before heading off to find our walking tour near the famous clock.

 The walking tour itself really wasn’t too great---our guide was very nice, but she was a little bit softspoken/not bursting with enthusiasm---but at least it got us up to the Palace/Jewish Quarter/New Town/Old Town/Charles Bridge, etc. We made it back to our hostel and met one of our roommates—Brooke, a really nice girl from Australia (by the way, our hostel was amazing…the bed/pillow were so much more comfortable than my Verona ones and the décor was stunningly modern/well-done). We all decided to head out in search of an authentic meal and eventually wound up at Pivovarsky Dum, a brewery we had wanted to try out after dinner. Luckily, in addition to the aforementioned flavored beers, they also had food, so we all ordered goulash. Delicious! As was the Coffee beer, much as you might not believe it.

The next day was deemed “Jewish Day.” After a filling breakfast at Bohemian Bagel (bottomless cup of coffee, sesame bagel, pancakes) we headed off to buy our pass to the synagogues. A few of the synagogues had placards or exhibits centered on ‘Terezin’—a Jewish ghetto during WWII that basically just became a stopping point on the way to the actual concentration camps. Many people died just from the terrible conditions there, and almost all died once they were transferred to the camps. The exhibit of the drawings done by the children who lived in Terezin probably hit me the hardest. The Jewish Cemetery is also attached to one of the synagogues---just rows and rows/piles and piles of bodies.

After eating lunch (back at Bohemia Bagel---I had a BBQ Grilled Chicken Sandwich—yep, Chicken. Grilled. Not breaded or covered in mayo. It was awesome) we wandered along the river to check out the funky building further down, wound up in a park, and then hit up the brewery again for a pre-dinner drink. 

 

I feel ridiculous updating on my Spring Break while reading updates on 31+ murdered people, but I suppose I'll go for an escape. My roommate and I have been discussing it and venting...it's hard being here, too, and having our landlady asking us "how American youth can do such things to each other?" as she recalls numerous horrible incidents in our country's history. Well, I have no answer for that. Being American doesn't help anything like this make sense. It does make me question why things like this don't seem to happen in other countries.

Okay. To completely switch gears: Lisbon.

After our 18 hour bus ride, Dave/Andrea/I took a taxi to our beautiful hotel. We delusionally were hoping we could check-in "early" (aka 4AM) for our next night, but of course had to pay for that 'night'---not such a big deal, as splitting a 2 person room 3 ways (and-later-5 ways) doesn't drain the bank account too badly. After enjoying a few hours of sleep (and showering in the amazing hotel shower) we headed out to figure out how to actually get into downtown Lisbon. It turned out we needed to walk to the train station, take a train to a station with a metro, and then metro it into the center. Once we figured it out it really wasn't bad---still a bit of a hassle, but sleeping in a comfy room really made up for it.

Our first day was (per usual) the most productive. We immediately bought 48 hour passes for the tours---multiples routes on open-air buses/trams. Our first tour was aimed at hitting up the historical sites in Lisbon, so we saw many beautiful monuments (they reallllly love their monuments in Portugal. And tiles). In all honesty they really did just blend together after awhile, but the view was always beautiful, and when I got bored I would just switch my language to Italian for a bit of a challenge.

Ciao,
As my computer seems to be taking a pausa (or complete departure) from this world, just thought I'd throw in a brief update from my roomie's. I returned from Prague (Praha) on Saturday night--had a nice convo with my taxi driver, which made me feel like MAYBE I could get back into the Italian after 2 weeks pretty much without it (I listened to the tour bus guide in Lisbon in Italian, and that's about all the exposure I had...but that's a story for the hopefully forthcoming SPRING BREAK '07: LISBON). Prague was absolutely beautiful and I was just in food/drink heaven the entire time. Yes, authentic food (mmmm goulash) and drink (Pilsner beer)...but also bagels, drip/filter/endless cups of real coffee, pancakes, and a new favorite--coffee-flavored beer.

Seriously--bottomless cups of coffee? Could I have BEEN more in my own personal happy place? Okay, maybe if the bagel had been of the asiago variety and toasted a bit more perfectly, but otherwise the answer is NO. I love you, Prague. Cappuccinos are fine, but they are never about the free refills/potentially endless sipping/relaxing that I associate with coffee.

Clearly I'm starting to miss certain 'little'  things from the states. Not at all ready to come home, but the little things are definitely becoming bigger. And my landlady is starting to drive me (most of us) pretty crazy...but that's a whole other chapter in the "May 13th is less than a month away...PHEWWWW" book. The "May 13th is less than a month away...OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE VERONA/CANNOT IMAGINE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL IN URBANA" book is still longer...but we'll see. Leaving is definitely going to be bittersweet, either way I look at it.

As I'm staying in Italy for the remainder of the trip, real life's catching up with me. The crazy landlady, the classes, next week's final Italian exam, the grocery shopping/cooking, the needing-new-clothes-but-not-wanting-to-spend-more-money (if I haven't mentioned this, somehow on a diet of gelato/tortellini/cappuccinos/wine I have lost some amount of weight that's enough to make none of my pants fit...I felt like a very slobby person today, basically holding my capris up as I walked. It's been an issue for awhile, but definitely was more pronounced today--interestingly after a week of drinking beer and eating constantly. I think my clothes were just big before I left. I bought 2 pairs of new capris in Lisbon last week, so that should help a little), etc. When it comes down to it, though, I'm really happy that I'll mostly be in Verona for the next month. I've really missed seeing everyone with this busy month of traveling--and really there is still plenty in Verona for me to explore. All that's on my agenda is getting to Cinque Terre for some weekend, maybe Pisa (stop by Firenze again), day-trip to Bologna or Milano...we'll see. I'm not too eager to hop on anymore trains/planes/buses at this time.

I'll close with a few random pictures---real updates on Lisbon and Prague to come :)

I wanted to get a little more caught up on the journal-ing before I leave for Prague--but as that's in under 2 hours and I haven't packed, probably won't be too amazing an update.

Laura, Andrea, and I took a 9AM flight from Paris to Barcelona (which, naturally, was followed by an hour bus ride and several metro stops). I was optimistically wearing flip-flops, leggings, etc....but nope. It rained consistently the entire day. This was a bit of a bummer as it was Andrea's and my only full day there, but as we've both obviously seen Barcelona before it wasn't enough to bring our break down. Spending the entire day trying to find ANY way to get to Lisbon almost did the job (train? NO. plane? NO. bus? for one person. oh, wait, tonight at 11. oh, wait, NO. oh wait, YES. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS), but eventually Dave, Andrea, and I opted for the 18 hour bus ride, as it was a 1/3 the cost of a plane ticket, and we thought it would save us a night of paying for a hotel/hostel (it didn't, but oh well).

As far as sight-seeing, we really only made it to Sagrada Familia, which actually was perfect as neither Andrea or I had been inside it during our time there 2 years ago. It is sooo beautiful, and supposedly will be finished in our lifetime (I'm slightly skeptical, but here's hoping), so obviously we'll all have to go back one day for the unveiling.

I got back to Verona around 11:30PM yesterday, and after about a 12 hour sleep am starting to feel recharged again. Maxine and I just spent the day trying to buy groceries (not successful), eating ice cream, doing laundry, internet-ing it up (aka uploading and quasi-captioning 300+ pictures--which hopefully I'll make public tomorrow after adding in Andrea's pictures), and getting kebabs for dinner. Just finished off the day watching random Office/Weeds episodes with Jake and am now feeling ready to enjoy another day in Verona tomorrow...before heading to Prague on Wednesday (it has definitely been a busy month).

Onto Spring Break. Let's take it one city at a time. Paris was first.

Laura S., Andrea, and I left for Paris around 4PM on 3/31. Our flight was not until 8, but that's how traveling cheap goes. We took a 2ish hour train ride to Bergamo, then took a bus to the airport, then checked in/waited for 2 hours, flew for 1.5 hours, arrived in France only to take a 1.5 hour bus ride into the city's center, got a cab, and then finally arrived at our hotel around midnight. We went right to sleep, intending to get up early the next day---that didn't really work out, but by 11AM we were on the metro and getting ready to spend a day seeing the Louvre, Notre Dame, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, etc.



I don't feel like I've really captured how much I enjoyed Paris, but It's past 2AM (after waking up at 2PM I'm a little off-schedule) and some sleep feels necessary. No class for me tomorrow...maybe I'll get a little sun (feel a bit behind the people who chilled at the beach all week) while enjoying my day off.

To sum up: Loved Paris; must return.

Ciao for now! Hope everyone's doing well!

Just a quick picture-free update to let everyone know I´m alive and well in  Barcelona. Paris was amazing, Barcelona has been a nice mini-trip down memory lane (in spite of some terrible weather), and today we leave for Lisbon on an 18 hour bus ride...should be interesting.

Hope all is well! Have a very happy Easter!  (And a very happy something else to my mom!!!!!  Almost birthday time!)

Elena

Well, tomorrow my Spring break begins. I'll be in Paris with Laura and Andrea through the 3rd, then it's off to Barcelona, then Madrid (very briefly), and then meeting up with Dave/Maxine/Danny in Lisbon. We'll fly home on Easter. A part of me just wants to lie on a beach for a week (I've been very nostalgic lately for our Puerto Vallarta vacation of '04, Mom +Anna...virgin pina coladas, food, and good books all day), but I'm very excited to see Paris, reunite with Barcelona, and see what Portugal has to offer (besides delicious pastries).

Not much to report. Verona--in which we usually are the only Americans, aside from a few tourists and apparently a group of students from Georgia who live in a hotel--has become tourist central this week. When I had to stalk Anna's tour group on Tuesday they were late, so I first had to sift through 20 other groups looking for her pink coat. I'm hoping it was just this week and not indicative of the next two months...I love Verona...but I'm just not ready to share it with masses of English-speakers. Getting quite possessive of 'our' town :)

I think the birthday celebrations of Tuesday/Wednesday went well. We made burgers/hot dogs for Steph's birthday dinner; went to McDonald's for Rachel's. Messy beer bong was really the main event for Steph's birthday (American celebration, indeed). I love celebrating other peoples' birthdays, but yep...mostly am glad mine will be back in the HW :o)

I don't have time for a full-blown update, but let's just put forth the important stuff via ONE photo (oh, the pressure)...

Just to throw in a little bit of academia (okay, not really, but definitely something that was seen whilst attending scuola), here are a few photos from our art history class's Wednesday visit to San Zeno:

Oof. Once again, it's been too long.

The rest of last week (with my 3 consecutive days off) was a lot of fun. Went out to a bar near Piazza Erbe on Tuesday with what seems to be becoming a group of sorts...good times. I truly like a lot of the people on this trip, which makes it hard to think about May 13th...but shhh, let's pretend that it's very far away. I slept over at Via Mario (per usual...lucky bastardos and their Arena/Bra/Erbe location), headed home in the morning to shower, then headed back to Mario to go shopping with Andrea. After running some errands (and each buying a pair of jeans--one of the few items of clothing not on our lists of things we neeeeeeded to buy) we met up with Laura to hit up the grocery store and buy supplies for cookie dough.

Oh yes. We made cookie dough in Italy.

How was it? Um. Odd. 'Brown sugar' here has the same sort of texture as real sugar, so it was very grainy. Good effort, though, and it certainly was eaten. After watching Wedding Crashers and observing an amusing game of charades, it was time for bed.

On Thursday night we celebrated Andrea's 21st birthday--with class, naturalmente. A bunch of us met up at Via Mario and walked over to San Matteo (a nice pizzeria) to begin the countdown to midnight. After dinner we wine-bar-ed it up in Piazza Erbe. I believe (and have seen photographic evidence) that the night ended with a very ubriaca Andrea, but I left early (well, like 12:30) as I had a double load of classes the next day. You should be very jealous of the cake we consumed---delicious!

Thursday
As we didn't have class, Matt, Andrea, and I decided to go to Venezia for the day. Our primary goal was to see the Guggenheim Museum, but we spent the bulk of our time in San Marco just playing with the pigeons. It was great to see Venice on a non-Carnevale day...took far less time to get around. Crowds just aren't for me, but Venice without them was pretty darn beautiful (which seems like a given for any Italian city, but I'll keep putting it out there anyway). After taking a very creepy route back to the train station, we made it home sometime after 10. I pretty much cleaned the room, packed for the mountains, caught up on my Gilmore Girls (naturalmente), and crashed.

I left for Via Mario around 8:50AM as the cleaning lady was coming at 9--and there was that whole "Unofficial" thing. Wound up just lazing around Mario until about 11, after which Andrea and I went to cappuccino/croissant it up. Although we weren't really feeling the Unofficial spirit, the gorgeous weather led to us each buying a bottle of wine and sitting in the Bra for a few hours. I've never been a big Unofficial fan at U of I (Freshman year I didn't even begin to celebrate 'til about 5PM and wound up just going to a concert at night...last year I was bored by 1PM and watched What Not to Wear at the Bromley for most of the night), but it was nice to at least quasi-celebrate something from 'home.' The bus ride to the mountains was certainly entertaining.


Once we got to the hotel it was almost time for dinner. This particular meal wasn't too impressive (and the waiter accused Jackie and me of lying about ordering the soup, so we were not pleased), but the following days' were pretty delicious, so I'll let it go. The rest of evening was just spent watching Italian TV--mostly the musical festival in Sanremo--and getting some sleep.

Saturday
We ate breakfast around 7:30 as the bus to the cheese factory departed around 8:20. As most of the pictures demonstrate, the smell was not very pleasant (as us Wisconsin-ites know well :D), but it was crazy to see how much time/effort goes into making cheese. The end result was pretty tasty--and this is coming from someone who pretty much never ate cheese until she got here. Italy's making less of a picky eater out of me, day by day.

After the cheese factory we wandered the streets of Asiago for awhile, then returned for a yummy lunch (all I'm remembering right now is that they served us french fries, but I suspect the pasta was good, too) and got ready to go skiing. I fell. A lot. The first one was the worst (my nose and chin still look a little pathetic), and eventually it was fun. Not that I ever left the bunny hill, but still.

Post-skiing we all got a chance to shower/chillax before another nice dinner in the hotel. Highlights included a wine-drinking competition and an amazing dessert. After dinner we all got back on the bus to see the tail-end of a hockey game. Once the game ended it was time to huddle under blankets outside and enjoy the lunar eclipse (which none of us could capture well on camera, but it was pretty sweet---I think I kept expecting the whole sky to turn red or something, but the red moon was good enough, I suppose).

First things first...

Just an update to recall today (complete with lots of disorganized rambling), because for whatever reason it's been a really good one.

Well, okay, primarily for these reasons:

1) Got a card from Momby during my break from Art History (which, hey, for being at 9:30AM wasn't sooooo bad--I liked the Christian iconography part).
2) They had the cream-filled croissants during pausa. Always a good start to the day.
3) After Art History I went to the train station and bought my tickets to/from Austria. Not only is it really nice to have them in hand, but I think I communicated everything in Italian adequately, which always feels satisfying.
4) Took the bus to/from the train station by myself. Shouldn't be an accomplishment, but for a nervous person such as myself...it was.
5) The weather was gorgeous today. I didn't mind walking at all.
6) Met Andrea in Piazza Bra for panini vegetariani and chatting (as she was in Irlanda--SHE HAD STARBUCKS THERE...anyway--this weekend).
7) Italian class was fine/amusing, per usual. Maurizio asked about our 'festa.' Camille and I got to do our dialogue first--was nice to get it over with. I certainly didn't speak perfectly, but no major errors and at least I remembered what I was supposed to say!
8) During Italian's pausa a postcard from Joel from Barcelona arrived! Such a nice surprise, and fit in well with my morning purchase of Vienna tickets!
9) Our team won in Taboo (in Italiano, naturalmente). I had a very hard time explaining "tipico" (although Chris--though not on my team--got it, so i didn't feel so bad), but otherwise we all just used little stories from the group (April used my love for--and disappointment in Italy's lack of-- chicken to get 'pollo') to get the job done. Good times.
10) Pretty sure I did very well in Italian1...somehow. I'm double-checking the grade tomorrow (I never can believe it until I've seen it in print, clearly next to my name about 5x), but yes...already was forced to pay up the Euros.
11) Maxine and I went shopping and bought yummy focaccia. And grapes. And croissants. Ecc.
12) Just the prospect of seeing an Italian movie AND not having class tomorrow pretty much makes the night good in my book.
13) Jaci and I will soon be online simultaneously trying to figure out Spring Break--although if Greece doesn't work Andrea and I have decided we'll definitely consider a France/Spain combo.
14) Just looked at all the pictures from the Oscars online. Ahhhh I love dresses (aka abito da sera).
15) The reasons are getting less and less specific...but seeing everyone again today was really nice. People have been traveling a lot/seeing friends from other countries, etc, but today we were all reunited. Wheeeeee ;)

Alright. Basta for now--just wanted to share the happiness. Hope everyone else is having a good day, too!

(And because I've never had a picture-less post from Italy...random happy things from the last few days not previously posted)