SNOW DAY!

I was all set today to wake up at the crack of noon, work out a little, and hit the books for the big exam this week. So I roll out of bed, head to the kitchen for some breakfast, and stop dead in my tracks. I see *white stuff* outside on all the buildings and trees. Nooooo, it can't be, I said to myself. Everyone said it hardly ever snows in Bologna, and it didn't even feel that cold yesterday. But lo and behold, it was the real mccoy. A good dusting of snow covered everything, and piled up for about an inch and a half on top of the cars. I wish I hadn't gotten up so late, as the snowfall had already turned to rain and the snow seemed to be melting. But as the day went on it began to come down in flakes again, so I said to hell with studying, and went for a walk. After all, I had the entire rest of the day to study! So the short walk just to see what it was like turned into a long walk to the center of town, which turned into a trip to the grocery store wherein I bought some hot chocolate, which turned into me finding National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to watch on the net while I was waiting for the chocolate, which turned into watching Home Alone when it came on immediately after Christmas Vacation, which basically destroyed any last vestige of the will I had to study. SO, in sum: if I fail this test on Thursday I am blaming it entirely on the snow.

Even though I've never had a white Christmas before (or woken up to newfallen snow, for that matter), it really felt like Christmastime had officially started today. It's definitely a different feel to Christmas here in Italy; although there is still a lot of shopping and people put up decorations, it's not quite the all-out Yuletide assault that it feels like back home. And one of my favorite parts of Christmas is of course the music, which is not nearly as omnipresent here as it is back home (in fact I don't recall hearing any Christmas music anywhere here yet; but the 99.9 KEZ website broadcasts their feed, so I take advantage of that). So after all my activities today to avoid studying, it finally feels like the season has begun. Too bad there's that massive test on Thursday =\

But on the day after the test, our class is getting together as a group to have a little Christmas party. It'll be potluck style and I'm planning on bringing my now-mildly-famous pumpkin pie, AND I also made an apple pie the other day that went over pretty well so I'll be bringing one of those too.

For Christmas itself, I'm going to Rome to meet up with some fellow Americans. Krista, Mom's former secretary, is doing a Masters in history in England, and she's going to Rome for 4 days with some of her friends so I'll be meeting up with them. I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting things to see in the Eternal City, right on the doorstep of the Holy See for the big day.

What else have I been up to lately? Not much out of the ordinary. I went out the other night with some friends from class, and we ended up in this shot bar (that is, a bar that only serves shots) that is usually crowded but was empty for some reason that night. And was that ever a good decision! We proceeded to take a myriad of shots, many of which were on fire, near fire, looked like fire, or tasted like fire. A few examples:
-take a bowl, pour some liquor in it, put an empty shot glass in the middle. light the liquor on fire, put a big glass over it. the pressure changes and forces the liquor up into the big glass from the bowl, filling the shot glass. take the shot, THEN inhale the alcohol fumes that were trapped by the bigger glass. who comes up with this stuff???
-a tasty Bailey's based shot, topped with whipped cream, set in a puddle of liquor on the bar. light it on fire, let it burn and caramelize the outside of the whip cream, while dusting it with cinnamon at the same time (which creates a cool sparkler-like affecting as the cinnamon ignites)
-take a shot, hold it in your mouth, with your lips closed. the bartender wipes all the liquor from your lips and face with a towel, then open your mouth, and they stick a lighter in. a decent sized flame shoots out! close mouth quickly, swallow the shot. delicious!

It's probably a good thing (for me) that the place is crowded all the time. I don't know how they can get away with all that fire - I think you'd have a hard time getting around any of the legal implications back home. And how could you ever get fire insurance for your bar?? I guess they figure the building's been there for hundreds of years, it must not be going anywhere soon.

Wish me luck on my test this week!