01/17/10

Today, I woke up at 11. I got the most sleep last night since I left for Italy. So that was nice. Filiberto and Angelica came over and fixed our light in our bathroom. They also tried to fix the toilet but said they’d have to find someone else to come back tomorrow and fix it because there was a part that needed replacing…I don’t know. We met Molly at Pathos (a café with free Wi-Fi) and walked around awhile, got kebobs for lunch, and went to her apartment to see the other girls; Lydia, Emily, and Diana all live with her. Their apartment is pretty nice and big, but it’s also an killer uphill walk to school.

Sidenote: we’ve been earning our carbs here. I wish I knew how far I’ve walked in the last week.


We hung out at their apartment awhile and waited for Pathos to open again because everything closes in the afternoon for a few hours. Then we all crammed into the upstairs café of Pathos, ordered hot drinks, and talked to the owner, Ervin, who had to register all of us and give us login names. He spoke some English and told me that there were girls studying abroad last year from Michigan that came to Pathos all the time. He called me by my full name, but pronounced it with a heavy accent so it sounded beautiful. Like “kat-ar-een” or something…anyway, the café got really crowded later and I got fed up trying to load pictures on facebook, so I left.
There’s a chocolate café/bar maybe three doors down from our apartment. YUM.

We made dinner tonight.  No, not pasta. Well Hsuan Hsuan made some for herself. And Grace and I steamed broccoli and made chiliburgers. I know. American food. But we were just proud we cooked it ourselves and it turned out alright. I think I like cooking. We’re going to the market (called Tigre) soon this week to get some more shopping done. I’m craving fruit. We’re out of dish soap, we don’t have any paper towels or napkins, we need bread, milk, yada yada yada…Hopefully they take Visa.
Noelle and Rai dropped by while we were making dinner and ended up staying until almost 11, which was really cool because we just sat around and talked the whole time. All the girls get along really well, but it’s fun to see our different personalities mesh and get to know each other. There’s definitely already different dynamics.
So five girls sitting around for hours—what do we talk about? Boys. Don’t worry, I just listened. They had enough stories to fill the night. Haha.
Classes start tomorrow. Italian, Painting, and Modern Italy. Each for a couple hours. I’m not signed up for Modern Italy, but I might go just to see what it’s like. We’re allowed to do that for the first 10 days I think. I’m so excited to learn some Italian. I feel so helpless. I can’t even walk into a store and buy what I need because I can’t communicate with them.

I saw a German Shepherd today. An Italian German Shepherd. I wonder if it would understand English.


No parlo Italiano molto bene. (I don’t speak Italian very well)