Hey,

My Thanksgiving was great. Chicken stuffed with all kinds of vegetables and herbs and these spinach cheese stuffed mushrooms (I ate tons and I don't even LIKE mushrooms), ridiculous garlic and cheese mashed potatoes and vegetables, a Spanish peach tart thing. My American appetizers came out really well...hotdogs and all. Some girls came over and brought a chocolate porcupine tiramisu. We ate at about 9 at night, but we all stayed up talking until 2am. It wasn't the whole turkey deal, so I suppose it wasn't a real Thanksgiving, but I felt homey enough. It was really nice to just hang out and talk and have good conversation and good food. (cheesy)Friday was good, we slept in and went to Florence. I spent the remainder of my money on a hilarious amount of things. One girl we went with spent over $600 on leather coats and purses within two hours. Then she almost had a heart attack. We ran around; we ran to the Duomo. We ate McDonalds fries while we ran. It's really fun when you don't buy anything for a while and then you spend all your souvenir money in such a rush like that. Anyway we ran around buying things and windowshopping and then got right back on the train and went home. I was planning on wandering around Florence a bit, since it was my last time there (sad), but I saw the Duomo and the markets, and it was so hilarious that it was definitely a good way to say goodbye.

We are starting to get down to the wire around here. I have two ten-page research papers due next Monday. Topics: the Excavation of Troy, and the Historical Significance of Jesus. Greeeeeat. It's pretty sad, since we all know I'm going to do them both on Sunday night. But I do have a field trip Saturday and there's a train/bus strike on Friday so I can't leave town, so maybe I WON'T wait until the last minute. Maybe. I suppose an entire semester of not doing my homework had to come back and bite me in the you-know-what anyhow. I've also got to figure out a non-awkward way to take pictures of storeowners and their stores for my Italian project. Hm.

We are having under-the-surface issues in my apartment, I think. One of my roommates is VERY clean, in a sweep-the-apartment-every-day sort of way, and the rest of us are...not. Anyway, I swept the apartment one day, and two days later, we came in to our cleanest roommate mopping the floors and yelling. I just turned around, went into my room, and closed the door, since I didn't really know what else to do. I suppose that didn't really solve the problem. That's okay; this always happens in an apartment full of girls, so it's no big deal. But today it came up again. But then, everyone started secretly complaining that they always buy the soap, or the detergent, or the paper towels, and things started disappearing out of the kitchen and being hidden in closets. At the same time, I just bought a jug of olive oil for us all to use - and someone went out and bought another one. So now, we have five thousand liters of olive oil and two weeks to use it in, but no soap. It is getting to be one of those things that is pretty awkward under the surface, and would probably turn into some big thing if we were here longer, but we're not, so it's just kind of funny for now. At least it's not like my friend, who has a very open-hatred relationship with her roommate, who is in the army and very organized. She asked my friend to buy some paper towels, and when they were not there by lunch, she immediately started to spread rumors around the whole school about her in revenge. The whole thing ended in a screaming fight, things being broken, and my friend buying an entire industrial-sized case of paper towels and throwing it all over the army roommate's room, or something to that effect. It was great. I really lucked out with my roommates, they're great, it's just sort of funny how this awkwardness always happens.

The vest guy is driving me crazy. Everywhere I go, there he is. He seems to have figured out my entire schedule, from what time I have class to which roads I take to get to the track. He's everywhere; it's like magic. Only nasty. After he ran full-speed at my roommate making, you know, gestures, she went to the school advisor. The conversation went something like this:

Roommate: Hi, there is this guy who follows girls around and twists his nipples, and he is really bothering us. Can I take out a restraining order? (slightly over-the-top, but whatever)

Advisor: Wow, okay, I've never seen him before. But I don't think you can restrain someone from the street they live on. Or for just being a dirty old man.

Roommate: Okay. Well, would it be illegal to dump a bucket of water on him from the window? We were talking about just doing that too.

Advisor: Well, no, but uh, I wouldn't do that either. Uh...he's a small guy, right? (Don't know how she knew this, as she's never seen him before...hm.)

Roommate: Yes?

Advisor: Well, if he tries anything, you could snap him like a twig. (smiles sweetly) Good luck!

Thank you, Umbra Institute.

So anyway, we have been contemplating our revenge. Today, he did it to a teenage girl, in front of her grandma and her little sister. He gets this smile on his face like it was his big achievement of the day, like he impressed us or something and now he can go home and be proud of himself all night. I am in favor of the get-a-slice-of-pizza-and-throw-it-on-his-face plan, OR the water-out-the-window plan, but of course, I would only be able to do this on the day I was leaving, or else risk some kind of angry stalker situation. We'll see what happens.

Last night we went out to listen to some live music and really got into it and came home late. I feel like you really get the feel of a place late at night, when you're coming out of a concert, talking too loud, and you hear how loud your voice is against the dark and see the moon and the stars and the colors of houses against the sky. For me, it's when it's late, but you're not tired, that you think the most clearly, and you can see things how they are. I'm going to miss it when I'm gone - the people, the houses, the medieval churches that look so old but then they come to be a part of your loud, lit-up life, running from one place to another, grabbing onto whatever you can as you go by. I like how everything is half old and half new here. I love the Christmas lights going up too; they're all over the city.

Anyway, that's about it. We're planning our trip to Paris, which I'm getting really excited about. The train is a little less than I thought it would be (gooooood).We have to forego our stopping-in-Switzerland-for-a-night plan though, I think, since we're broke, which is sad. But I'm really excited to see Paris at Christmas, so whatever, more time is probably better there. It IS the most visited city in the entire world for a REASON, I'm sure. Also, I want to see Troy. :)Okay, that's it. I wrote this because I am trying to put off going to the track to go running, but I should go before it gets dark. Bye!