I slept! After waking up at 4am again, like clock work, I was fully planning on starting today's post with- It's official, I have insomnia, my transformation into my mother is complete. But it only took a couple of hours, and I fell asleep again!! Big improvement. All together, I got 8 hours of sleep last night! È molto buono. I'm still sick, however, and feel rather strange. So...keep praying! Grazie.
I forgot a couple of things I wanted to mention in my last post... When we were headed out, my hair wasn't quite dry (because my dryer works on half speed here and I am impatient), and one of the girls made me finish drying my hair because she was afraid I would get sick (too late for that one), but this reminded me of Dad and made me laugh. They think it's sooo cold here now, and they all bundle up in huge coats and scarves and boots. It was about 40 or 45 degrees that night... They couldn't believe me when I told them it gets below zero where I'm from sometimes (we had to convert that to centigrade first). They said it never snows in Naples and I told them about the blizzard in Chicago and they said they wouldn't have made it through. When we were window shopping, we stopped to look at a window full of jewelry. I told them that Dan doesn't like jewelry, and Helena told me- è perfetta, when he visits he is safe from from Napoli women. The women in Naples love their jewelry. Also, they were telling me about all the great places to dance in Naples, but that we couldn't go to any of them because we have a curfew, which is quite fine by me...this way I don't have to make excuses to not go out with them (since I have already had my mid-life crisis and decided from it that I am too old to have fun anymore). The curfew is 10:30 on weekdays and 12:30 on weekends, and dancing doesn't begin until after 1. Later that night when I was laying in bed not sleeping, I had plenty to listen to; on Saturday nights people yell and sing in the streets until about 5am (much like Rolla with the Grotto down the street).
We weren't able to go to the sea yesterday, it rained all day. And even if it had been nice weather, I'm not sure we would have gone, because when I asked Emanuela if we were still going to the sea today, she looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about. But that's probably because I tried asking in Italian...
Also, the time does not "spring forward" in Italy, so now we are only 6 hours apart! This makes scheduling skype easier!
I didn't do much yesterday, but I was able to take a short nap! When I woke up some girls came to get me to go to the kitchen for some tea. It's sweet how they take time to sit down to have conversations together here.. I wonder if it's because the place I live has really cool people, or if it's common in Italy. One of the girls who collected me for tea is the other foreigner here- Begonia from Spain. It was easier for me to talk to her in Spanish and have her translate to Italian, but then I wouldn't be able to understand the Spanish she spoke back to me, so the poor girl had three languages going on in her head and I could tell she was struggling. She's learning Italian now too, but Spanish and Italian have alot of similar words, so she said it wasn't too hard for her to learn. Everyone here gets along so well. It's amazing to me that a house of 30+ girls has no cliques or tension.. None that I have noticed at least. But Italians are pretty free about sharing how they feel, so I'm sure I would have noticed by now. Everyone sits by someone different at every meal, they all greet everyone very happily, and there are never jokes at anyone's expense (even mine, when I know it would be very easy..). I got very lucky with where I am staying. ...thanks God!
Before dinner I met a girl who is studying engineering as well. "Sheep" engineering. I was very confused.. I tried to think of every possible way there would be an engineer for sheep; I figured she was an Aggie. But eventually I figured out she meant ship! For dinner we had stuffed pizza and it has been my favorite food so far. Amore! It shames Giordano's, which I thought was impossible. After dinner at group talk, they asked me to talk about my family, then they taught me all the Italian hand gestures.. holy cow! I only remember the two that mean "stupid"...fitting. After group talk I showed a couple of girls my pictures of out trip to the grand canyon. One of them knew all about American Geography because she watched Carmen San Diego, and had the computer game and video game! Pretty cool.
K, mom, I know I promised I would answer the questions you sent in the email.. but I have my first Italian class today and I don't want to be late! Perhaps I will post again later today and answer those. And Dan, I'm sorry, I ran out of time and couldn't proof read, mi dispiace!
Love love love!
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