Ciao, ragazzi.

So I've been hanging out all weekend doing nothing. It's been awesome. I didn't end up going away because of money (yuck), but it was actually pretty nice to be able to relax for a change. A lot of times, traveling sort of makes you exhausted and you don't really realize and you just are walking around tired, so its nice to finally sleeeep.

Not that I have been sleeping. Obviously. I've just been doing a whole lot of nothing - reading, cooking, window shopping. On Friday six of us went to take a tour of the Perugina chocolate factory, which was pretty cool. It was free, and it was in English. The only thing was that the CHOCOLATE STORE WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION - so it was CLOSED. Which was actually the biggest tragedy in our lives, but we dealt with it. They gave us some free chocolate Baci balls (MMMMMMM) and kitkats (who knows). We saw the Baci museum, with posters of Mussolini and Frank Sinatra advertising Perugina chocolate, which was funny. We also saw the largest Baci ball on earth. It was really...large. As in, the size of a car. Then we got to walk through the factory, which was EXACTLY how you would imagine a chocolate factory to be... happy (mostly) people in white coats and little hats and gloves, feeling the chocolate, turning it over, little cookies and chocolates running down conveyor belts really fast along all the ceilings and all around the room, people on forklifts driving around with huge chocolate eggs on them...it was awesome. It was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except without all the magic. Or colors. Or...you know. It wasn't really much like it at all. But it was fun.

Later we cooked some dinner in our friend's apartment and watched Grey's Anatomy and this show called Gossip Girl, which was hilariously stupid but we were so excited to have TV that we were screaming. I'm not a big TV person, but having TV is a BIG DEAL here. When we lost the internet connection in the middle of our second Gossip Girl show, it was actually the biggest tragedy on earth. But we will survive. Ps if anyone has the second season of Lost and knows how to email/mail it, let me know? The first season is on my computer but it won't last long among people who are ravenous for english-speaking TV.

We have been playing card games and window shopping all weekend too. I really want 1. a pair of flat Italian sneakers like the Italians wear, because all other shoes look stupid with the jeans that I have left except flipflops, and my feet are getting cold

and 2. an Italian hoodie sweatshirt. Italian kids wear these hoodies with patterns on them that look awesome. I found my dream sneakers yesterday but my size was out, and I found my dream hoodie, but it was pretty expensive. I will probably buy it anyway. Because I WANT IT.

We went to an Italian dance club last night. It had about ten floors, lights, different levels of dance floors, and fog. There were about a thousand people in it. Not exaggerating. Our school ran a bus there and convinced us (meaning, ALL of the students) to leave the center of town at 1am and go on it, except that the first bus back was at 5am. The club scared us to death, actually, and was one of the more bizarre places I have ever been in my life, so three of us ended up paying for a cab back to town, eating a LOT of hot dogs, and going to bed.

So that's been my weekend. Nothing special, but definitely interesting anyway. Now that autumn is sort of in the air here, I am liking Perugia even more. I also really like all the people here. It's great to have friends from somewhere familiar in a new place.

So now, I am going to go home and eat (obviously) and mayyyybe start this Early Christianity reading that I have been putting off for a MONTH now. I also have to write a composition on my family for Italian class - which is funny, because my family is too complicated for Italy. I asked my teacher how to say "a LOT LOT of cousins" and "I have two half-brothers" and she just stared at me. Haha this should be interesting.

My roommate had a friend over the other night who has been backpacking through Europe for five months. Next she is going to Africa. She has been to like, twenty countries already. She is the best traveler I've ever seen - she had everything in a backpack and she even had a special sleepsack to repel bedbugs. She was awesome.

Also, okay. Italian moment:

I was walking through the center of town the other night cause I went to get chocolate and was going to meet up with my roommates and go out. And then this car pulls through the crowd of people and pulls up right next to me, and I notice it's a police car. So I'm sort of just walking, staring at it, trying to think of if I did anything wrong (I mean, when a police car is following you...natural reaction??) and all of a sudden the window rolls down, a middle-aged policeman sticks his head out and says...."CIAO, BELLA!"

God. As if it's not enough that police vans have tables in them and the policemen sit inside them and drink wine and stare at people...now they are catcalling too.

I have gotten really good at staring at people since I got here. It's an Italian thing. I'm the best out of anyone.

Anyway, okay. Bye.