BUONAGIORNATA.

So my classes all got cancelled today for no reason, so that's great. The only class I had was Italian. My Italian teacher yelled at us for a half hour about how she was disappointed in us because we never put in any effort. Then she said, Jess, what is the answer to number one on the homework? And, obviously, I hadn't done it.

Luckily, I am a good faker.

I feel like I am the only one here who isn't doing homework all the time. As a matter of fact, I do maximum five minutes per day (Italian). If I have to do more than that, I get MAD. Like our business project - one girl did her part wrong, so I had to spend 4 hours comparing Sweden, Germany AND Brazil. I hated that. I've never been so mad about anything. Luckily, our teacher loved it. He sent our ideas to IKEA. (??!)

But anyway. I am off-track. I am just saying that everyone around me is whining and studying and complaining about their work. And I, as usual, am distracting them, eating a snack, and reading a magazine. This happens to me every semester - I do absolutely no work, have about five total hell days during midterms and finals, and do fine. Everyone tells me it's because their classes are SO HARD, and mine are SO EASY, but I don't think that that could be the case every single semester. I think I'm just lazy...and a genuis.

Nothing much is new around here. I have just been hanging around. On Friday I went on a field trip to a place called Tarquinia. It's near the ocean (or, as my Italian teacher says, the SEA BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OCEANS IN ITALY HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU ALL *HANDMOTIONS*) and it is an old Etruscan settlement. The Etruscans were these people who basically hung around and drank wine and recited poetry until some of them turned into Romans and came back and killed them all and stole their land. They made these cool tombs underground with passageways and painted them like circus tents with animals and scenes inside and people dancing. They cremated people and put them in little tiny houses in the tombs. It's weird. We got to go inside the tombs.

It's funny to judge an entire society by their tombs, though. That's what we do, since they don't have a language. We saw this funny cartoon about a guy from our time who overdosed on drugs in a hotel room (I know, that sounded psycho, but it was actually funny). It is an archaeologist in the year 5000 or something looking at him being like, this room is his burial chamber, these drugs are magic potions, this TV is a sacred object, these jeans he is wearing are sacred burial vestements, etc. I was wondering if the Etruscans were completely different than we can see just based on where they put their dead people.

Anyway, on Saturday, I went to a town called Cortona. It is only 45 min away. It is the town from Under the Tuscan Sun, if you've seen it. I wanted to see if I could go navigate it, knowing nothing. I did well. It was easy. The people were so friendly, the town was adorable. I went into this church that was dark and scary and gothic, lit up by red electric candles with pictures of the martyrdom of saints everywhere (not kidding). I felt like, uh, maybe I'm not supposed to be in here. It was SCARY. Then I windowshopped through all the porcelain and art stores, it was nice, and went to another church that was really pleasant inside except for, oh, the PRESERVED BODY OF A DEAD SAINT IN A GLASS BOX. It was kind of disturbing. I was totally confused. Was it really preserved? Was it a miracle? Was it fake? You know. But I felt awkward staring because people were praying, so I just got OUT of there. Then I went up to a fortress on this forest path and there were tons of people hanging around and I went up on a hill and you could see the WHOLE of Tuscany I'm sure, patchwork farms and olive groves, and it was only 5 but the sun started to set this red neon color over the church, and there were these rusty crooked crosses on the roof and the rays were catching them and reflecting. And the whole sky turned pink and gold and these clouds rolled in and, all of a sudden, it started to snow. This is Italy we're talking about - it's not exactly freezing. It was so gorgeous. You could actually see the red sun rays in the air, and it was snowing over all the land below so the whole sky was full of this pink mist. It was absolutely great.

The rest of the weekend, I was lazy. Two of my roommates were away, so me and the other one hung out and read together (since our apartment is creepy when you're alone) and watched movies and slept in. It was good to relax. I've been reading this book called Life of Pi. Mom, I know you were making fun of it, but it's the best book ever. It's about this kid who is a castaway in a lifeboat with a tiger and how he lives by catching fish and trying to show the tiger he is dominant. It's a really good book. I don't want to finish it because it's my last book.

You might all have heard about the murder here. It's a little scary. We have all been a little creeped out, but we're being careful. Everyone's a little on edge, so we're going places in groups and stuff. Overall, this town is safe, it's just been a weird month.

So that's it, I think. Good news: I think I am getting my coat back. I WILL HAVE A COAT AND NOT FREEZE! My coat went to Ireland, got left there, got picked up by my friend Jessie, and then went on vacation to Dubai with her. Now, it is going to journey across Europe to me. Lucky coat.

That's it. We are making our OWN Thanksgiving this week (with, uh, chicken...and bruschetta), so I am going to buy some food for it with all my free time. Hope everything is good at home. Can't wait to be back...three and a half more weeks here, and that's it. Can you believe that?

ps. So I just went back and read that over and noticed that when I said, "I am a genius" I spelled "genius" wrong.

Apparently not.