Don't look at me that way - it was an honest mistake.

It doesn't feel like taking God's name in vain when I say "oh, Dio mio!" partly because it's Italian, and partly I don't think I'm doing it in vain. Addressing God with an exclamation seems like a natural response to what's happening in my life right now.

Summer has been wonderful. I've been working at Texas Roadhouse, which sucks but everything else has been kind of perfect. Except for predictable dissapointments, like the fact that I didn't get as much done as I wanted to on Greek composition and research for my thesis. (But I still have about a week and a half left, right?) I've also been tutoring Latin, making new friends and generally having the time of my life, as is becoming a habit, it seems.

It's just so odd. To be a senior in college, talking about grad school options as if I had a clue what I'm doing or as if I actually believe I'm ready to be that grown-up - to move out of state permanently, to pay my own phone bill, to be completely independent financially, to have a degree, to survive grad school and "pick up" somewhere or other a couple of the modern languages requisite for good scholarship in Classics, eventually to become a "doctor." I took the GRE and while I'm a little bit dissapointed with my Verbal score, overall it didn't completely suck and I may have a chance at getting what I want - which is to study and travel all my life as I have been these past few years and maybe, you know, to have babies (not children and definitely not teenagers, but maybe a couple of babies).

But holy crap. When did the joy of independence in a part-time job and a driver's permit get replaced with this? With writing samples and statements of purpose - as if I had a statement to make about purpose (I'm not Rick Warren, thank you) - and real decisions about where I want to live. It sounds like the college application process all over again, but it's so much more stressful this time. There are a few (okay, mainly just one) other considerations this time that make the whole thing very surreal.

Sometimes I just want to escape. I think that's why I always talk about spontaneity. And on that note, tomorrow I am very un-spontaneously planning to carry out my DLS. :-)

Gag me with a teaspoon

Can I just say that Java City has the most horrible coffee in the world? Every time I go there, when I'm here at the library, I end up wondering why in the world I spent $3.66 on this crap, which it should be illegal to give away. If I wanted a lukewarm syrupy mess, I would go suck a maple tree on a nice day.

Sexy's Back!!!

So I'm back in the land of the un-magical light. Texas is a pretty awesome place, anyway, though, because there are some pretty awesome people here.

I got back at about 2 in the morning Mother's Day, and in spite of this, I spent all day with my family, cooking Italian food for my mom and playing with my little brother. :-) No jet-lag for me. Monday I started work at MM's and worked there through Friday night. Saturday I came to Waco, which is where I am now, yay!

Summer I'm going to be working at Texas Roadhouse and possibly Dillard's, taking two history classes online through the local community college, studying Greek composition, translating the rest of Catullus' poetry and working towards my thesis, and getting ready for the GRE. So I don't have to answer that question again. Don't even ask where I'm going to apply for grad school. I don't plan on having an answer till next fall.

More later.

Oops.

Sorry. I guess I never did finish the spring break story. Well, it was one of the best weeks of my life so far. Let's just put it that way. I love Amsterdam. And Paris. For my birthday weekend I went to Rome, and I REALLY LOVE Rome. Europe in general is beautiful and exciting. Sicily in particular is kind of exotic and gorgeous. And I miss Henry.
Finals are pretty much here, and I have all five in three days, and each is three hours long, and I have effectively wasted this weekend. Or is it wasted? I'm about to leave all of my friends here, so it seems pretty important to spend time with them. I can't believe it's over. When you start something that's going to last 4 months it seems like a lifetime, but when it's over it seems very short.
What have I been doing....(besides school, ya'll don't really want to hear about that)...there was a EuroChocolate festival in Modica last weekend. Don't worry, I bought souvenirs. :-) Modica is an adorable little town in Sicily where they make this chocolate that doesn't melt. Chocolate seems like it's pretty much a way of life for people in Modica, like ricotta cheese is a way of life in Sicily. They even put chocolate in things like pasta dishes and couscous, and they have flavors like "peperoncino," which is red pepper - it's actually really good, I think.
Agrigento was one of my favorite excursions. The second best preserved temple in the Mediterranean is there, called the "Temple of Concord" because no one has any idea to what divinity it was dedicated. The best preserved temple, in case you're wondering as we all were, is the temple to Hephaestus, I believe, in Athens. Or was it Hercules? I'm pretty sure it started with an H.
On my birthday (and on the night before my birthday) I got all sorts of wonderful suprises, which confirms my suspicion that I have the most amazing friends in the world - that includes the ones at home, of course! Brie made dinner, Stefania and Julia made a cake, Maia gave me presents, there was a crapload of balloons and a note on the board when I went into my Latin class that day, and after the puppet show, when we were having tiramisu (which I made myself, and the preparation included beating egg whites stiff - with no electric mixer and no whisk!!) I received a very obscene card, the contents of which should not be discussed online. I love birthday attention. I think it's the only kind I like, actually.
So tomorrow is Julia's birthday and I am going to try Chicken Marsala as a suprise tonight - did you know that Marsala wine is made in Sicily? Probably you did know, but I didn't. I love Sicily.
But I love America, too, and in some ways I think I love it more after being away from it for a while. People are constantly makind unfavorable comparisons between the two countries, but I don't think Italy wins every contest. America does pies waaaay better than Italy, I have to say. Italian pies are almost all crust (and not a good crust, either) with just a thin layer of jam. That would never fly in America. We have real fillings. And Italians don't seem to have a lot of their own music - they listen to a lot of American music (and sing along even though they don't know what they're singing - it's funny to listen to) or sometimes Spanish or Mexican music, (I think, because it's in Spanish) for Salsa dancing. And we have to whole public restrooms thing going for us. Apparently a lot of Italians feel sorry for Americans because they assume that the food is all terrible in America. But really we have some pretty decent American food, and then we have all sorts of other kinds - Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, Italian...who says we are so closed-minded? And I'm starting to like American accents. I really really love Italy, but I refuse to constantly criticize the US just because it's different. Maybe we aren't quite as "cultured," whatever the heck that means, but give us a few more centuries, for crying out loud - we're just a baby country compared to Italy.
I think I'm starting to fit in with the Italians in at least one respect: I talk about food all the time! :-)

Put your reading glasses on, get comortable, and be sure to hydrate - this is going to be a long one.
Spring Break took forever to get here and is going by incredibly fast, as usual. My last class was Philosophy and we got out two minutes late, but who was counting? That was last Thursday. We had a big "empty the fridge of all the stuff that will go bad while we're away" dinner and then after a while we went to "Amo" for salsa dancing. Staying out late the night before you fly to Paris is maybe not the best idea, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time.
Friday morning I had to shop around Ortigia a little because the funny thing about backpacking around Europe is, you need a backpack for it. I left mine at home because I prefer my Vera Bradley tote for school. We took the bus to Catania early in the afternoon even though our flight wasn't supposed to leave until 5:25 PM so that we could sit around in the airport and people-watch. At about a quarter to five we found our gate and waited. The flight was delayed. Eventually it said that it was delayed two hours. Um, that's a problem. That would mean we would miss our connecting flight from Milan to Paris. And the hostel we had booked in Paris might cancel our reservation if we didn't make it there by midnight. So with our best "Don't Mess With Texas" attitudes Brie and I went to talk to someone. They kept saying that they had called our names to change our flights, we must have left the airport, they couldn't help us, it was impossible. Finally they found a way to get us to Milan that night and a flight to Paris the next morning. The airline would pay for a hotel for us in Milan, they said.
So we flew to Milan. We got there at about 11, and check-in time for our flight to Paris was 7 the next morning, so unfortunately there was no time to see Milan. Plus the airport is about a 45 minute train ride away from the city, apparently? It took about an hour for the people in the Milan airport to figure out what had happened in the Catania airport and to give us plane tickets and a hotel voucher. A bus took us and a about 20 other people who I imagine were having similar problems to the hotel. It was nearly an hour away, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but we didn't care. It was a "4 star" hotel where we could finally sleep. We still had to pay for the hostel that we didn't make it to, but we figured we were getting a hotel for the price of a hostel.
The next day we arrived in Paris around noon, I think. The airport was very confusing; none of us spoke French and the dictionary I bought had limited phrases and not much of a pronunciation guide, but the people were super nice and most of them spoke English. We finally go the right metro tickets and found our way to the stop where we needed to get off for our hostel. The stop was called "St. Michele / Notre Dame" and as soon as we climbed the steps out of the station, the first thing we saw, our first view of Paris, was Notre Dame. That was a pretty amazing moment. Of course I got a little squeally and jumpy and we took a lot of pictures, and then we went inside, where you aren't supposed to take pictures. It was beautiful. After a while we started to wander around in search of lunch, and our first Paris meal was salty crepes from a street vender, filled with all sorts of cheeses. We sat on the steps of the "Pantheon." After some walking around we got to our hostel and I think I slept for about 14 hours - I was so tired from midterms, dancing, traveling...the next day we saw the outside of the Louvre, which is quite remarkable even if you don't go inside, and we walked down a beautiful street with parks and trees and statues and fountains - I'm not describing it well at all and even my pictures aren't going to express what it's actually like - and then we saw the Arch di Triomphe (I hope I spelled that right). I had a quiche and croissant for lunch but I don't remember what everyone else had. The Eiffel tower was next. The lines were long, it was cold and rainy, my umbrella broke, and the battery in my camera died that night but it was still one of the most exciting weeks of my life ever.
I love Paris. I saw a lot of it from the top of the Eiffel tower, and I want to go back. We waited around so that we could see the Eiffel tower at night. In front of it there is this glass thing that has "peace" written in lots of different languages. I got a picture of the English word with the tower in the background. I think I also managed to find "paz"(Spanish), "pace"(Italian"), "paix" (French?), and something like "eirene" but in Greek letters, so I'm assuming it was modern Greek. That night we stayed in a particularly sketchy hostel. I don't want to freak anyone out, but there was a small blood stain. We were safe, though, of course, and the next day after breakfast and some walking around we went inside the Louvre. The Louvre is shaped sort of like an A that isn't pointy, and in front there is the big glass pyramid that everyone seems to recognize from The Da Vinci Code. That is the entrance. You go down into the basement, basically, to buy tickets and leave your backpack, and then you go into the Louvre. It was overwhelming. There are all sorts of floors and courtyards. It's just huge. You could spend a week in there. All the captions for the paintings and statues are in French, but I could recognize some of the Classical and neo-Classical works and when I looked at the captions I could tell if I had been right in guessing the names of the mythological figures. Practically the first thing I saw was the Venus di Milo. I got dizzy in some places. The cielings were so ornate I could stare at them for a long time. I have to go now...but I'll finish the Spring break story later....

Mi piace ballare!

I didn't realize that it's been so long since I last updated.

I got my first Italian haircut, which turned out to be a party with a razor. We managed to tell the hairstylist that I wanted just an inch or two off, with layers, and the side bangs trimmed. Then he attacked my head. I really hated it at first but now I'm getting used to it. Brie got her hair cut, too, a lot shorter than she wanted, so we were sad all day, but don't think in terms of Audrey Hepburn ala "Roman Holiday" - it wasn't that bad. There are pictures on Facebook, of course.

We went to Mount Etna last weekend, and it was beautiful, and there are pictures on Facebook. I ate horse meat (!) and it was actually really good, as long as I didn't think about horses...especially any from Black Beauty...especially the one that died. Then we went ice-skating. Sicily is not "the island of eternal sunshine" as someone apparently once said. I love winter.

Tuesday night I hardly slept at all so that I could finish a translation paper for Greek, and I skipped what I'm hoping was not a mandatory trip to the market in Syracuse for all the Italian classes, and I got to Greek class (I am the Greek class, really, it's private instruction) and it turns out it wasn't due yet. My Greek homework takes about five or six hours, anyway, and I had this extra assignment on top of it.

Wednesday was my first night of Salsa lessons. It was really intimidating when all the Italians started walking in, but it was so much fun, and we learned Salsa, Meringue, something that starts with a B, and a little bit of Tango. The lessons are twice a week, and we've already paid for the month of March, although now we realized that the taxi to get there is 6 euro each time, so we're going to figure out how to take a bus, instead.

Today two of my classes (Plato and Art History) were cancelled, so I went to the market this morning and bought all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a Basil plant. It's a little bit intimidating to go to the open market by myself, but it's good for me to practice what little Italian I know. Tonight I'm going to make dinner, and it's finally warm enough to eat out on the terrace! I love cooking here. Instead of looking up a recipe, trying to find all the ingredients, and then following the directions, like I do at home, here I just buy really fresh amazing ingredients and then try to think of ways to combine them. Everything seems to go together because it's all so Italian. There is a middle eastern place here on the island, though, and a Chinese place. I'm glad because I'm actually getting a little tired of pizza and pasta. I don't really crave American food, just something not Italian.

The only material thing I really miss right now is the Baylor library. I miss having a good quiet place to study. I'm finding that I actually don't mind living without a clothes dryer or a car. I don't even really miss the internet. Well, maybe sometimes.

Well, that's pretty much my life right now. Spring break is going to be amazing, and I'll write about it soon.

Wet cobblestone and pointy-toed stilettos

I'm back now from Palermo, the city on the other side of Sicily where we went yesterday and stayed last night. I'm going to try to stick to the interesting things in this blog and not explain boring details...

The mall in Syracuse is awesome. I've never shopped so intensely in my life, and I love the way Europeans dress. They are always bundled up this time of year, even on the days when it isn't that cold. The little old men walk around arm in arm and do the double-air-kiss goodbye. The women do that, too, and little kids...

I spent the night at my first hostel and it wasn't bad at all; actually it was really nice; the lady said it was sort of a hostel, sort of a "guest-house." For 19 euro, it was pretty awesome. The heat actually worked there, and it was more than just a space heater, unlike my apartment, and there was a tv that got lots of channels in German. We watched "Ella Enchanted."

I have some homework to do for Greek, Latin, and Philosophy. I'm still working on my readings list, by which I mean I'm still working on compiling the list; I haven't even started reading for it. I hate doing this while I'm abroad. But my other two classes aren't going to be too bad, I don't think. Italian is really fun. There will be exams, a paper, and a presentation in Art History but until then all I have to do is go on the field trips and take notes in class.

The food is really good here but two of my roommates and I have decided to start imposing certain restrictions on ourselves, because there's just a little too much gelato, tiramisu, cannoli, marzipan, and various other pastries and chocolate things that are everywhere. Espresso has no calories if you drink it black like I do, though, so it's my consolation. The custom here is to drink things with milk in them like cappuccinos or macchiatos only in the morning...

I have lots of pictures still to upload onto facebook, maybe I'll try to put some on here, too. I officially love traveling, and I can't wait to start planning my spring break. I'm hoping to find some really cheap flights to some exciting places, although either way I know I need to stop shopping and save for that. I also want to take at least one weekend trip somewhere. I'll tell you the specific destinations once I find out what they are!

I miss everybody a lot. I know I've only been here for 2 1/2 weeks, but it seems longer because it is farther and because I know that it will be for so long. I'm really happy here, though. It's strange because I'm having the time of my life and I'm looking forward to it being over. Having the time of your life can be exhausting, and there are really weird feelings that come when you suddenly leave all of your family and friends and everyone you know, and then make new friends really quickly, and feel close to them and far away from everybody you're used to being close to. It's just weird. I wish I could be with everyone at once. Sometimes I feel like I don't have the time to maintain all my relationships the way that I would like to.