I swear, I can use the corkscrew now.

Mauro & I! Sharing a drink in the piazza.

Last night was delightful: my roomies and I went to Jess, Sarah, Stephanie, Andrea, and Megan’s apartment for dinner. Megan made us some wonderfully seasoned chicken with red pepper and onion, risotto with a red sauce, and we had a beautiful salad. What fun girls- we had a great time. Then I took advantage of the internet they get in their apartment and skyped with the rest of the Fab 4- Kelsey, Maddie, and Alex! Although I couldn’t get my webcam to work so they couldn’t see/hear me, I could see and hear them and it was just like we were all together. It made me miss them like whoah. Girls, LOVE YOU. You make me happyyyy. Then E & I, once again, spent the evening at the Fashion bar. Sat with Niko, another one of Flavia & Tiziana’s friends, and all of his Italian friends and once again found ourselves using our Italian. Haha, his friends are funny. Wound up sitting outside with them for a couple hours (long enough so my brand new blazer and jeans and lungs absorbed lots of cigarette smoke … again). We might see them again tomorrow.

This will be another long post. Today was quite an adventure. Details galore.

Looked out the window this morning and saw a thick line of fog over the hills. Rained allll day.

Feeling homesick today. Miss all my Denison girls. Their pictures make me a little sad. Got to talk to mom today. It rained lots. Hung out with Mauro, Umbra’s “techie” guy on staff, while chilling in the school building Bartolo to get on the internet. Mauro’s young, well dressed, and completely adorable. All the girls love him, and he loves him back. On the way back to the apartment when Elisa and I stopped for a bottle of our favorite frizzante red wine (fizzy red wine- it’s so good!) to pair with our steak & potatoes dinner, we met the adorable old guy who runs the grocery shop that is right in between our class building and the Fashion bar. He helped us pick out a good wine, gave us discounts on the cheese we bought, and then he threw in another bottle of wine! For free! Hahaha what a cutie. We’ll go back there and probably be best friends with him by the end of the week =) Stopped at our favorite butcher for some nice steaks.

Looking forward to a fun, relaxed night, Elisha and I (Chelsie & Carly are out of town for the weekend, so it was just the two of us), hopped, skipped, and jumped back to the apartment. Ready for some wine, we ran into a dilemma- neither of us could figure out how to use the corkscrew (yeah, we know, we’re idiots!) Carly had always opened the wine. So, er, needless to say, it took us a while. It involved more than one corkscrew. And we finished with a cork that was just a little … crumbled. We rewarded ourselves with a toast and some Gilmore Girls episodes along with our kick butt dinner. Got ready to go out around 10, not expecting to be out too late. Boy did that idea go awry.

It began at our default location: Fashion. Elisha got herself a latte and got a table inside (because it’s gotten chilly here! Seriously!) and we chatted. I finally met the other guy who bartends there, named Tony. I don’t know if he was speaking extra clearly or with extra simplicity for our sake, but I found for the most part I could understand most of the things he said to me! It was so fun to be able to communicate with him and Sam! All we had to do was say, “LENTAMENTE!” (slowly!) and if they spoke slowly enough we got most of it. Only twice consulted the dictionary. Go us! While sitting there we also met Rocco, a student at the University of Perugia. He knew about as much English as I know Italian, so we communicated in broken sentences but it still worked. He offered his number so if we were interested in another tandem (language exchange) then we could meet up and practice. Cool, huh? Because we were sitting there so long, Tony brought us some Bailey’s on ice. That’s what I really like about Fashion- it’s full of nice guys. It may sound as though I’m basically only making Italian guy friends, and I suppose it’s true- but you have to understand, women don’t really come up and talk to you here. Yes, men may come to talk to you for other reasons, but men here just don’t hold back with anything. If they are curious about you (and they usually are- for some reason, no matter hard we try to look/sound Italian, we will always scream “HI, I’M AMERICAN” even if stay silent), they will come over and ask you who you are, where you’re from, etc. We have been extremely lucky to have generally avoided the slimy creepsters. I think that’s seriously unusual, considering the proportion of creepsters to nice. The guys who we have met are tame and (as far as I can tell) genuine. It’s so nice to have people who are patient with our incompetence.

Anyway, then we stopped at Celebrate to see Flavia and Alexandra. Stayed for a drink. Got bothered by a severely drunk Italian man (who definitely belongs in the creepers category above). He came over to me and got in my face (like, literally two inches) and asked (er, slurred) me where I was from. Over and over. I said “New York” and he says in English “Really? I know New York!” Over and over. It was half hilarious because he was so completely inebriated, and half annoying because he was getting way too close. Eventually, after standing back and watching the whole spectacle and laughing, his friends took him away with an apologetic smile. Although part of me thinks they encouraged him. We thanked Alexandra and were on our way to stop back at Fashion to see Tony and Sam before they closed, but we were sidetracked by Mauro, who we ran into in the square. Met some of his buddies, and wound up staying for a drink with them at Dempsey’s (another popular bar just across the crowded square from Fashion). While in the square hanging with Mauro, drunk guy from Celebrate saw us and once again, his friends let him stumble over and bug us with his proximity and the same questions. Mauro was no help, hahaha.

Back to Fashion as it was emptying (it’s now 2:30ish), hung out as Sam & Tony closed up shop and cleaned. Some other older but not creepy regulars who we see at Fashion bought me and Elisha another drink. Sam & Tony made us sandwiches just because they heard E say she was hungry. Then Sam tooks us to Domus, the “disco pub.” At this point it was already close to 3:30, and I just thought, “okay, what the heck- let’s go!” He paid for our cover, held on to us so we wouldn’t lose him in the crowd, and didn’t let us out of his sight all night. If guys (which the club was full of- why does it feel like this city is 80% men who are all between the ages of 15 and 30?) made an inappropriate move or looked at us the wrong way, Sam would pull us into him like our own little body guard. I’m sure he loved having 2 American girls to flaunt at his side. But knowing that he was keeping an eye on us, I allowed myself to not get intimidated and I danced danced danced! ALL NIGHT. Mostly with Sam and Elisha. And, towards the end of the night, saw another guy (who’s name I have forgotten already) who was a friend of Mauro’s I met at Dempsey’s, and danced with him. Such a fun, unique, and awesome dancer! We played little games and he showed off his moves and I showed off mine, and at this point the floor and mostly emptied so we had some room to play. I love dancing with guys like that! It was such a blast! Another night of dancing all night at Domus (as long as we have a trusted Italian guy with us) is in the future.

Now back at the apartment. Sam walked us back and he came up to watch a movie with us because E & I decided that we just weren’t going to sleep, but after 5 minutes he decided he was too tired and went home. Which is understandable because it’s now 6:19am. Elisha and I aren’t even tired. Adrenaline is an amazing thing.