Well, I am now 20 years old! Big deal, big deal. It was a pretty good birthday from home, better than I had expected. I got to sleep in since I don’t have classes on Wednesdays so that was nice. Also, I have cross cultures on Wednesdays and sometimes after that class we get little treats and Angelica (Filiberto’s wife) had made me two birthday/ carnivale cakes and I was sung to in Italian, Chinese, English and Spanish. Then the group went out to eat at a pizzeria called the palace and then when to hang out at Katie, Grace and Hsuan Hsuan’s apartment where they presented me with a chocolate cake and some other chocolates, totally unexpected and it made me slightly homesick. I got to talk with my family which was nice. It was overall a success I would say. Then the next day we went grocery shopping and I made a couscous dinner with Molly and Grace. The instructions were 250 ml of water + 250 g of couscous = a picture of three people dancing and one more in parentheses. The diagram could have worked if we had measuring cups and what not but sooomehow it ended up edible. Then yesterday we went to Tolentino and Ascoli Piceno which were pretty cool. We had to be at the bus at 7:15… they were flat… we saw churches… the sun came out at one point. It was a pretty good day. We got back to Macerata and it was snowing, like real snow, like almost blizzard, crazy and for Film we have to write a paper about the Godfather so we are watching it again and we were supposed to watch it last night (at least Katie, Diana and I) so I told them to just come over but Diana said the roads were to slippery to walk and I didn’t call Katie in time. So poor little sicky arrived our door covered in snow. But we took care of her with some tea, songs on the guitar, soup and grill cheese and a movie. We watched Chicago, it’s been years, still wonderful. Then this morning we had a huge scramble with eggs, cheese, potatoes, onions, chicken, peppers, garlic and tomatoes. Now I have to go take a shower and head on over to Diana’s to watch that movie, so I must leave you. We have exams this week so we all have to study up but as a preview tonight we could possibly be doing Mexican night. Then, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day or as my dad calls it; Single’s Awareness Day. 

So that is that, alla prossima…if that is spelled right.

Alyson

Masks, masks, masks

Right. So… ready, set, go!

What have I been up to? Not really sure where to start. A lot has been happening and if I didn’t know I had my viewers I might not be doing this, so thanks for forcing me to record my doings, this is a good thing.

So, we didn’t have an excursion with school this week so we made our own and ventured to the fantasy world of Venezia for a taste of delicious carnivale. If some of you aren’t sure what that is I’ll try my best to explain. It’s like an experimental artist took a bunch of little people, put them in a bucket, painted their faces and put crazy costumes on them, dropped some alcohol in there and then dumped them in the center of San Marco square, adding a little bit of miracle growth.

That probably made no sense, basically, the place was packed and colorful and wonderful. The first days not so much though, we traveled all day Friday after missing the train from Macerata by literally, not joking, 30 seconds, we ran up to the train as it was rolling away. Anyway, we got to the Venice train station around 6 and then took a “bus” which is really just a type of ferry to Lido, an island that is about 40 minutes from the station. It’s pretty touristy in the summer I guess because it has a nice beach, it also has a decent hotel that costs 30 dollars a night… dollars, that’s not bad for Venice, at least it was cheaper and easier than a hostel. We went out with the others who had been there for about 4 hours already but there wasn’t much to do, we basically made it to San Marco, walked around the empty square until we met a few Americans I guess from California, and then out of nowhere they came swarming, there must have been around 200, we got out of there with a huge culture shock, everyone was like “I don’t like Americans very much”, so we will see what happens when everyone gets back home. It started raining so we all jumped back on the ferry soaking, my shoes were sooo wet but I figured they would be dry by morning… nope. So I walked around Venice the next day until about 2 with wet feet when I stared feeling really sick and cold and just nooot good. So after getting a hot meal and sitting down my friends Grace and Molly walked around with me to find shoes, by the end I bought these Venetian shoes from a French lady which were basically slippers… but hey, my mood improved by about 94% when I put them on. Then after two days of rain we were graced with the Sun’s presence just in time for the official beginning of Carnivale. Perfetto!

This is where it gets funny, we decided to take the train at 9 because the only one before that was at 3 and that’s when everything was happening. So… we get to our train and find out that it has compartments and not regular seats but there aren’t any slips where it should tell you if the seats are reserved, so I ask one guy what we are supposed to do, he tells us just to find some empty seats so we go in and take up two compartments of 6 for the 8 of us. Then people come and tell us that we are in their seats. So, we go back to talk to the same guy and he tells us to talk to the conductor who says that the train is full and according to our tickets we bought standing tickets, probably the reason that the woman at the ticket booth was showing as more concern than any Italian in her line of work should. He tells us then to get on the train and stand until the next stop where they will add more cars. So we all cram into a small area and get off, praying that the train isn’t going to take off without us. Luckily we got some seats in the next car and weren’t bothered until Ancona. Actually, that’s not true, at one point this guy came in and asked us a few questions something like, "Hey, my friend is very shy, he wants to get to know you, one or two girls come with me?" Yep, sent that one on his way. So then we got to Ancona at around 2am and had to wait 2 hours for our next train. At one point a guy came up to us and asked us if we were farther than Bologna and we were like... yeah, that's about 3 hours from here, I guess they fell asleep. Then we took another train to Civitanova and then to Macerata, the last train kept stopping in random places, everyone passed out and I forced myself to stay awake just so we got off at the right stop. We made it to Macerata at about 6am, then walked home, I got a 30 minute nap in, didn't change, got a caffe and got to class 5 minutes early.

I didn't sleep again until about 8 at night... so that's cool, got about 10 hours in, somehow lasted again today and am awake enough to write this, so not bad.

So that is a short update on the sitch. I would post pictures but I ended up filming more than taking pictures and I'm using my friend's laptop, so maybe tomorrow if I can. It's also my birthday! I think that we are going to go out to dinner or something, who knows, at least Wednesday is my sleep in day.

So, until next time, signing off...