no worries, i'm alive

i put together a whole breakdown of the "going out" night in a blog. and then blogger couldn't get it to look right and it annoyed me. so i haven't posted it yet.

anywho...i've been lying in my bed basically for the last 2 days. i have a cold. but its kind of like a super cold. i don't remember ever hacking up my lungs like this before. that's unfortunate. luckily, Anna brought a pharmacy with her, so i've been taking DayQuil and NyQuil. i've finished rereading two books (Sloppy First and Second Comings both by Megan McCafferty, which I highly recommend) and am now offically bored out of my mind. here's a list of some other things you might find interesting about my trip:

1. Italians Like Obama

we watched the inauguration on tv this week and let me tell you, it was one of those, "proud to be an American" moments. i really felt moved by watching this whole thing take place. even though i was in another country. i watched with a bunch of other American students at a bar on a big screen tv. there were some locals there as well who seemed pretty interested in the whole ordeal. we all stood when everyone was asked to stand. we all sang the national anthem at the end. it was awesome.

a girl in my Contemporary Italian Society class was telling us about how when she watched the inauguration (at a different bar) the Italians seemed annoyed that Americans were there. but in the end, everyone clapped after Obama had given his speech, causing the bar tender to say, "for Obama? shots." and she gave every American a shot of tequila. at the end of the girl's story my teacher proclaimed in good humor "Obama does really make miracles." hahahaha. 

2. Bad Ways to Start Your Study Abroad Experience - Getting Beat Up

walking back from the bar on infamous "going out" night, one of the guys who had come over to our house unfortunately ran into a bit of bad luck. now, i haven't seen the picture - yes, he put one up on facebook - but i'm told his face is covered in  black and blue bruises and is pretty swollen.

kevin got beat up by a few italians. they didn't mug him. they didn't take a single thing from him. they just decided it would be fun to beat up some American guy. at least from what i can tell.

now, if i were kevin, that is if i were a guy, i would be really upset. i would probably let this experience ruin part of my time here. but from what i understand, he's really not that upset about it. he's glad he didnt get beat up more than what happened. i feel really bad for the kid. but i'm glad he's moved on. i'm still kind of in shock by it.

3. Dinner is a Long Drawn Out Process

just like pretty much everything else in Italian society, dinner takes time here. they are so much more relaxed when it comes to time. everybody is about 10 minutes late - you can imagine how i feel about that. 

last night we went out to dinner and we were at the resturant for probably 2 hours. and pretty much the whole time all four of us were thinking "when is our next course coming?" "when is the check coming?" "is she ever going to come back to wait on us?" lol.

obviously this is going to take some getting used to...but i'm thinking that this concept will be good for me. maybe i'll mellow out. or maybe i'll slowly be driven crazy. haha.