That's Entertainment!

I’ve been trying to find ways to entertain myself outside of meeting up with friends or walking around. I’ve been reading a lot of books. I only brought one with me because I already had too much stuff in my suitcase. It wasn’t too long and I read it quickly. When I was in Vienna, I had found a bookstore with English language books. The selection was weak but I found a book there and quickly read it. Once I was in Prague I had a little bit of TV to entertain me but I only had a couple of English language channels and they were news. I don’t love to watch news. I had BBC, EuroNews, and occasionally I got some Hong Kong channel that was more entertainment than news. It all grew old quickly so I gave up trying to watch it. I needed another book and I decided that since I was in Prague I would honor Milan Kundera and get one of his books. I had only read the Unbearable Lightness of Being and really liked it. So much so that I read it three times. I picked up Immortality and have found it to be so-so. At this point I put it aside and will have to come back to it.
Since I got to Rome and started classes, I’ve been dying for some mindless entertainment. I don’t have a living space at my flat, let alone a TV so that’s out. I went to find a movie showing in VO but nothing is playing. I did rent Oceans 13 from itunes, which was so great to watch. Not because it was a great movie but because it was in English and semi-entertaining. I didn’t really watch it as much as I stared at it.
I decided I needed to pick up some brain candy reading. I went to the bookstore at the Termini and found an Ann Rule book. (They are true crime mystery stories that I never had any interest in until Jae got me hooked. Curses!) I quickly snatched it up and read the whole thing in probably two days. As I finished the book, I turned it over and noticed for the first time what I had paid for this book. Euro 14!!! That’s like $20! It’s a paperback that came out in like 1993.
I know part of my problem was that I bought this at Termini which is tourist central but it’s also 3 blocks from my school. I had to find another English language bookstore and ideally someplace selling used books.
I went to a store a metro stop away and found a big selection of English books. This time, I selected a couple of books based solely on number of pages/price of book. Seriously. I chose one Ann Rule and specifically selected the one that had the most pages for the best price. I also bought a book that I’ve never heard of that is 933 pages long and only Euro 12.10. It also said it was an International Bestseller and the story sounds somewhat interesting.
I decided that I was going to talk to the school about setting up some sort of book exchange. I can’t believe they don’t have one. I know our focus is to learn Italian but the school also teaches German and English. So, at the very least they should have a library of books in all of those languages. On top of it, they can’t expect us to be all Italian all the time. Our brains get tired and we need to take a break so that we can come to the next lesson refreshed. I told a couple of my school friends about this idea and they loved it and want to help. So hopefully I'll be working on a side project to set up a library at the school and have free books to borrow.