An Ordinary Life

I have been living in Italy for just over 5 months now and it has finally hit me that I’m actually living here. I mean last semester I had the excitement of getting here and exploring but as with anytime you move somewhere new that excitement wears off and you start to get into a routine. My life here is good, different, but good. My class schedule isn’t too bad, I only hav one class a day and on Thursday’s that class doesn’t start until 3pm so I can sleep in after a night of partying on Wednesdays (that’s the night that all of the university students go out here.) The greatest thing lately has been the fact that I’m now playing pool on a regular basis again. There is a pretty decent pool hall that is fairly close to my house and I’ve been going with one of the guys from the program about 2-3 times a week. There are 8 tables in the main room but there is this back room that also has some tables that I’m kind of curious about. The thing with that room is that you have to be a member in order to play there and it’s all these old guys that are always in there and they all bring their own cues and I really want to find out just how good they are. I think they just go in there and drink and talk and don’t really play all that much and are just in there to ‘look’ cool but that’s only a theory. I bet I could totally take them at a game of 9-ball, lol!

Last week was Carnevale in Venice and of course I went. It was a lot of fun but a little different then what I was expecting. We got there around 3:30 and hunted for masks until we each found the perfect ones. Then of course we started drinking! By about 8 or 9 most of us were pretty well hammered but it made the night a whole lot more interesting. There was a huge concert in San Marco and there was this amazing band that performed. I don’t know what their name was but it was a group of 4 really hot girls and they played the fiddle and just had a really great sound to them, kind of an Irish/bluegrass/country mix (ok that sounds kind of odd but take my word for it, they were amazing.) I really wish I knew their name because I would totally go and see them again. Anyways the best part of the evening came when everyone, and I mean pretty much everyone that was in Venice and not just in our program, decided that they had to catch the last train out at midnight. It was this huge crowd that was basically running down all of these tiny little streets. It was a little crazy. Then one of the girls from the program decided she wanted to feel how cold the water was in the Grand Canal. She started to walk down these marble steps that lead directly into the water but the very first one was covered in algae and she slipped and fell in!!!! There were some Italians that immediately started singing and clapping this song that they have for when tourists fall in the water (it goes something like Shit, Shit, you fell in!) She was completely soaked from head to toe and smelled so bad!!!! Poor girl, but it has to be by far the funniest thing that has happened since I have been here.