tantissimi cose

So Saturday I bartended, in Italy. Ahah. How the hell I actually got this job I have no idea, but it was such a good time. It was open bar for 10 Euro, so all of my friends and people from my University came out, and in addition there were obviously A LOT of Italians. I guess there is no better way to have to know what the hell people are saying and how to respond back than bartending.  I ended up having a lot of fun because it is much more laid back here and I got to have free drinks while I was working J It was weird because they don’t tip here, but I ended up getting paid a good amount of Euro at the end. And essentially I got paid to drink? So I defiantly lucked out with the situation.  The bar manager at La Tana D’orso is from England and he is the man. He told me how he just moved here, knowing no Italian, or anything about alcohol. And now of course he is fluent in both Italian and mixology. Basically I aspire to be him.  But he is letting myself and one of my other roommates, Ali, be bartenders when he needs extra help, and he wants my other roommates to help out with cocktail waitressing. So it is definitely great to have it to fall back on once we go on too many trips and buy too much pizza. Chris also wants us to help organize all the events and themed parties at the bar. This Wednesday we are going to “Americanize” the bar and have a beruit, flip cup, and chandeliers tounrnament which my roommates and I are promoting, and we will get our pitchers of beer free for the night for helping out. Thanks to our neighbor Vas that DJs here, we are pretty set for the semester.

Sunday morning we left for our day trip to Lago Trasimeno. This place was absolutely gorgeous. It was about a 25 minute bus ride and I was pretty upset to find out that nobody swims in the lake, even though it was one of the cleanest lakes in the world. But we started with an orientation with Arcadia, aka talked about our feelings and what we wanted to get out of the trip- lame. After we learned how to make pasta! It was fun and very authentic because we were in the middle of the country and everyone was old and couldn’t speak English.  But one lady had a power balance bracelet on? Weird.  Any, after we got a tour of the estate.  It started with the water systems and how they worked.  It is depicted on this shed.

Then we saw the self sustainable buildings and sheds made out of mud and straw.  They cost nothing to make and were completely green with solar panels.  The man who was giving us the tour was a part of a group who were building a self sustainable village for the people of India!  It should be done in two years.  After we had an amazing 5 course Italian lunch, and went back home were we were too stuffed to move for the night.

                

Monday was our first official day with classes.  All of my classes seem very easy and they should be fun as well.  After classes Noelle and I went to the grocery store.  It was not as miserable as the first time because now we knew what to do, where everything was, etc.  Once we left, it started to rain, so we sprinted to the mini metro stop.  Soaked we waited for our stop, when we got out it continued to pour.  So we waited for a little because it seems to pour briefly here then stop. But it just got worse after all of the waiting.  So we ran for it. Ten minutes later and bags of soaked groceries it looked like we had just showered.  But we salvaged everything. 

                Last night we were invited to dinner by our neighbors and some of their friends.  We had an amazing Italian 4 course dinner at a restaurant called Argentina  (the same owners as La Tana D’orso.)  It was great food and good company.  Greek and Italian were spoken during the meal.

                Today after classes I did all of my homework out on our roof because it was so warm and sunny out.  Tonight we had our first “Tandem” at Birrario.  It is an event organized by the school for the Italian and the American students to meet.  Angie and I were grouped up with four Italians; Sonia, Marta, Andrea e Giovanni.  They were all so nice and so funny! We organized a study group between all of us to help each other with our English and Italian homework. Currently I am waiting for my roomies to get ready (Lauren takes forevvvverrr) to go to La Tana D’orso.  We organized the night for tonight which entails a lot of American drinking games, i.e. Ruit & flip cup.  And we invited our new Italian friends to come, since of course they don’t ever play these games.  Next time I will try to find more time to post a blog for everyday.  I apologize for this mega long blog, I’ve been molta preoccupata! Ciao tutti!