Happy Holidays

HappyMerry ChrismaHanaKwanzikah gentle readers! Even though there are some grinches out there, I hope every one of you is succeeding in having a great holiday season. From what I hear back home, this Christmas is a little somber, much like the last one. Despite all of the bad news and obstacles we encounter, I hope everyone is keeping their heads up and getting into the holiday spirit. I know I am.

Speaking of which, I've suffered a bit of a setback today. I had my whole financial situation for this trip planned out meticulously, and today I found out that the bank closed my completely unused personal line of credit account. I spent a ton of time on the phone today (Skype is a miracle!) trying to see if I could get it reopened, as I was planning on using those funds to pay for a year of tuition. But no dice, because of the general economic condition and the fact that I can't legally work here means I have no income. I'm pretty upset about it, but it is probably not even the biggest obstacle I've had to overcome in getting to this point, so I am confident that I can figure something out. In any case, it looks like it's bargain bin pasta from here on out! Ah, the life of a starving student - I really did kind of miss it.

My plans for going to Rome for Christmas are still on schedule. The snow here is melting (and turning the sidewalks into an icy hazard - good thing I have a big ass and a hard head) so I am not anticipating any bad luck with the trains, although trying to get one booked was a huge hassle - which is a recurring pattern here, to say the least. But when something really works, it is beautiful. Anyways, I look forward to spending four days there in Rome. The weather there is considerably warmer than here (around the 50-60F range, as opposed to snow and ice here) and I've got a lot of things planned out that I'd like to see. Plus I'm about 99.99% sure that the people I'm meeting up with and I will have a good time and possibly paint the town several shades of red. I also plan on taking lots of pics, so look out for another big post when I return!

Happy holidays!

And enjoy some pics from our Christmas Party...

Misbehaving, as usual

What a nice picture... mostly because I'm not in it

The infamous snow-bump incident of 2009

Pumpkin pie takes Italy by storm!

White Christmas

The snow continues to fall! Today we haven't gotten so much, but it absolutely DUMPED on us last night. The drifts were easily a foot deep in some parts; all the cars and scooters are covered in a thick layer of powder and it's beautiful!

Thursday we had our exam, and it wasn't quite as scary as I was anticipating. At least I hope. Generally, when I get a feeling like that after a test, it means I did horribly. So we'll see. Of course after the test everyone wanted to celebrate, so a gang of us picked up a bunch of beer and headed to someone's house to hang out. And as per usual, a few drinks turned into a crazy night painting the town red. I successfully lobbied the group to return to the shot bar and light some stuff on fire, so I was happy as a clam.

Friday we had a big Christmas party for the lot of us CLAMDA students. Luckily one of our companions has a huge apartment here in town that is perfect for having a big party, so we all went there. Everyone brought something; wine, homemade food, desserts. It was awesome! I brought a pumpkin and an apple pie, and it seemed to go over pretty well. There was lasagna, various types of torta salata (think quiche, but without the egg), pizza, "Russian salad" made by a real Russian, tiramisu, and even homemade wine! We had quite the evening, which of course extended after the party was over into the wee hours of the morning. We left (read: stumbled) from the house as one big sloppy gang, and walked to the center to find a club. The snow had been dropping something fierce while we dined, and we got to a big piazza that was still pristine, so a huge snowball fight immediately ensued. We're talking 20+ people tossing snowballs and chasing each other around! It was quite a good time, and as you can imagine for a desert rat, it was like being a kid in a candy store with all the snow. Of course I managed to slip and fall several times and now have bruises and a large bump on the head as battle wounds. But it was a small price to pay for such a night! Somehow I ended up with a Santa hat so no one even noticed the bump by the time we got to the club.

And the shenanigans didn't end there. Walking home through the drifts, I came upon a couple guys trying to get their car unstuck from the snow and ice, so I gave them a hand. In hindsight it probably could have ended up badly, and I can only imagine what was going through their minds at the sight of an inebriated American with a Santa Claus hat pushing on their car. Ho ho ho! When I got home, I apparently decided it would be a good idea to put my socks on the furnace to dry them out. I then promptly forgot about them, and let's just say the results were not pretty. I'm about 97.6% certain I gave my poor roommate a heart attack.

Here are some photos from the first day it was snowing:

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!