Weekend Recap.

Saturday I woke up and Skyped. After doing that I got dressed and went out with Andrea and Asia. First we went somewhere for Andrea to pay a bill and then we went to a small store that sold mostly educational toys to buy Asia's class gifts. Apparently they have "end of school" parties and then bring one male girl, one female gift, and one unisex gift. While at the store an American woman came in and I had a nice conversation with someone fluent in English who was outside of our group for the first time since leaving the US. She was from California and moved here 9 years ago to teach English, fell in love, and have been here since. Her 3 year old son (who spoke English) told me I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen because I had blonde hair. After talk to them I wasted for Andrea and Asia to finish by playing with the Etch-A-Sketch and Kaleidoscopes they had. This reminded me of my brother so much that I considered buying him one but I didn't. After leaving the store we went back to the house and ate lunch. We left around 215 to take Asia to her swimming lessons. There was a bar in the athletic center (by bad I mean a snack bar type situation that serves coffee because that's what bars are here) so I sat at a table and worked on the papers/assignments I had to do for the trip. Once the lesson was over we sat around for a while so Asia could have pizza. I don't know what was going on at the pool but there were a TON of 20-something Italians in Speedos. I talked to a couple who spoke English for a while and one even asked for my e-mail/if he could add me on Facebook. This is the FOURTH time this has happened to me since I've been here. I don't know why these boys think that's a logical thing to do. Haha.

After we left the pool we went to the grocery store store. While I was there I went to the Pharmacy and picked up a few things including Melatonin and an Italian flu medicine. Then we went to pick up the cousin Georgia because she was going to Milan tomorrow. When we got back to the house I read for a while and then we got ready to leave for dinner. For dinner we went back to the same friends' house we ate at on Thursday. We had Digelle for dinner. Basically it's small bread resembling Pita and you fill the middle with cheese and cold cuts, and eat raw vegetables on the side. Beings that I'm not a huge fan of cheese and I wasn't very hungry, I didn't eat much. But I did eat was good. After dinner Andrea explained the importance of food by telling me some of Italy's WWII history. Then he and Stefano (the dad of the other family) went to watch the rest of the soccer game in the other room. I guess the Italian team from Milan (even though there isn't even ONE Italian on the team!!) had some type of cup game against Germany. They won. God, I hate soccer. Meanwhile, the mom's were talking/cleaning up, the teenage girls were chatting on Facebook and continuously giggling. Asia, Georgia, and Francesca were in the other room doing only God knows what, and I just sat and read because I was exhausted. Oh, and I saw a bunch of HUGE bugs. SOOOOO GROSS!!

Last night I finished reading Perks of Being A Wallflower for the 18th time. Literally. Every time I read that book I get something different out of it, something epic. This time I realized that I am way too up tight about the way I love my life. That I need to have a little more faith in people. From now on I plan on living life with the mind set that I have always claimed to have. I can't continue the way I have been, not trusting anyone, because it's pushing people I care away.

Anyway, this morning I woke up and got ready. My host family (plus Georgia) and I were driving to Milan. I had been awake since 6:30 with no luck falling back asleep so by the time we got on the road at 9:30 I was already tired. Alle let me sit in the front seat so I would have a better view of the road and scenery. I'm sorry to report that I did not take advantage of this. I was continuously dozing off. If I wasn't doing that I was trying to keep myself awake or turning my head to a certain way so that Alle and Andrea didn't know I was sleeping. Haha.

Once we got to Milan I was more awake. We found a parking spot and proceeded to walk to the Duomo, which is this huge Cathedral that is really famous. It actually has one of the nails said to have been used to crucify Christ in it. Pretty epic.


There were a ton of pigeons outside of the Duomo. It was one of the grossest things I've ever seen. After leaving there we stopped for lunch at a cafe/restaurant. I saw "Roast Beef American" on the menu so I ordered that expecting a big hunk of meat. Unfortunately I had briefly forgotten where I was and when a plate of cold cut-ish roast beef and tomatoes came out, I was slightly disappointed.



After leaving the restaurant we walked through an old castle's courtyard. There were tons of men there selling knock off purses, sunglasses, etc. I wanted to buy a pair of sunglasses but Andrea kept insisting it wasn't a good idea. I told him that I've purchased knock offs in NYC before so I understand what was going on but I didn't want to upset him so I just didn't buy anything.


After the castle we went to ride the Metro back to the parking garage so we could drop off our bags but I ended up keeping mine. Then we walked to the theater for "La Bella E La Bestia." My seat was in the FOURTH row, and the entire show was in Italian. Thankfully I obviously knew the story so I was able to keep up with what was going on even if it was in a language I didn't understand. The actor with the best voice was definitely the beast. Belle was good but she seemed like an Alto trying to sing Soprano as some points, and we all know how painful that can be. My favorite numbers were definitely "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and The Beast" at the end. We then walked back to the car and drove back to Carpi. Once we got back we stopped and had pizza for dinner. Then we came home, I showered, and now I'm going to sleep because I have school early in the morning.

Ciao!