Week in Review

It feels like a lot happened this week. Tuesday was the big sightseeing tour and hair salon visit that I already reported on.
On Tuesday night, the Canadian – John, came over to my place and made me dinner. Ahhhhh. How cute is that? Actually, this is kind of his thing. He does it for everybody and basically he was hungry, didn’t want to stay home, and didn’t want to go out to eat. It was really nice to have someone make me dinner. It’s been a long time since that has happened so I really tried to enjoy it. I had heard stories about how great his cooking is and how he has gone over to various student’s houses and cooked for them. I have to remember my audience. He cooked a bag of dry pasta and tossed it with a jar of plain tomato sauce that he “doctored” with pepper and basil. It was so not want I wanted – I had pasta at lunch. It was also really plain. He also did something I didn’t understand. He added water to the tomato sauce and the cooked pasta when he tossed it. So the bland tomato sauce got watered down. I was a bit in shock when I saw this happen. I chocked it up to something that he saw his mom or grandmother do and he thought this is what you did to pasta sauce. He probably didn’t know that it was his mother’s way of making the sauce go farther. I’m just guessing. Anyway it was nice of him to do this and I ate a big bowl of pasta with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.
On Wednesday, I met up with the usual group for drinks. We hung out in the Piazza Navona area. At midnight, I reported that it was time for Cinderella to head home and I called it a night. Thursday was my last day of school and I wanted to make sure I had some sleep. I was really excited for my last day of school. I think I’m just ready to move onto some other adventures. In the end, I really enjoyed my time at the school. I enjoyed the teacher and meeting the other students. I even relaxed and enjoyed my lessons. It never seemed easier but once I stopped over thinking it, I had more fun.
I celebrated my last day of school by attending the Wine of Italy activity at school that evening. My bus ride to the school was probably the worst one I’ve had. I’ve taken the bus to and from school every day and from three different neighborhoods so I’ve experienced a lot of interesting rides. I had thought my morning trip to school was the last time I’d make the journey but I had forgotten about the evening wine class. The bus was more packed than I’d ever seen it. I got on at the back door and figured, “okay, we’re full and no one else can get on”. Why do I ever think this way? On each additional stop on the route to school we added a good 3-4 people at my end of the bus. I couldn’t see what was happening in the front. I could barely breath. I was having flashbacks of the Billy Idol concert when I was in high school. I rushed the stage, upon Billy’s insistence that he was lonely, and found myself squashed against a mob of people. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breath. Billy’s guitarist, Steve Stevens, even tried reaching his arm down to me to pull me out of there but I couldn’t put my arms up to reach him. You know I wanted to be pulled on stage too. I definitely tried to move.
I found myself on the bus, thinking I’ll just get off at the next stop and walk. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to the door and exit if my life depended upon it. I was trapped between two men, whom I became intimately involved with along the journey. They smelled like a mix of sawdust, leather, cigarettes, and drunk.
I kept breathing through my nose trying to prevent any chance of tasting this smell. I kept praying people would get out at each stop but no one was moving. I gave up hope as we got closer to Termini. Everyone was going to that stop. When we arrived, we spilled out of the bus, and I gasped for fresh air.
Thank god that was my last trip to Termini for now. Unfortunately I have to make the trip one more time on Tuesday to catch the train to Napoli.
Onto school and the wine class. I figured this would be a nice little night of sitting around a table discussing the various wines and tasting them all. Nope. It was a lecture, all in Italian of course, on the history of wine in Italy. Mamma Mia. I was in and out of listening and trying to understand the discussion, praying that I’d be rewarded with some wine when the professor was done talking. When he finished, 90 minutes later, we got some wine. Geez.
After the lecture I headed to a chain restaurant (I know but it’s good) called Insalate Ricca. They have an abundance of different salads, which is hard to come by here. I had only been once before and it was so good. I really needed a salad too, especially after my double dose of pasta on Tuesday. I plopped down and already knew what I wanted. I ordered right away and sat and waited, eavesdropping on the conversation of a couple of Brits next to me. They were leaving town the next day. Every time the server came back over to me for whatever reason, we’d chat a little about whatever in Italian. It was more of him talking and me understanding and answering with one or two words. He came back to the Brits table next to me and gave them some complimentary Lemoncello. They stared at it and gasped and mentioned how they couldn’t possibly drink it. I decided to jump in here. I told them what it was and how great it is. We started to chat about what they were doing in Rome and why I was here. They are traveling the world, endlessly it seemed from the tales they told. They were leaving the next day for Tokyo. As we chatted they confessed that they thought I was Italian by my conversations with the server. HA! Fooled you.
It made me feel pretty good though since I really don’t feel like I know a whole lot. I thought maybe I had even fooled the server until he came back over later and asked me if where I was from and that he knew I was an Italian student. Nuts.
On Friday, my first day without being an “official” student, I spent the morning lazing about my flat. I finished another book, did some messing about on the computer, and made a phone call to get a waxing appointment scheduled. It was time. I couldn’t put it off any longer. My fellow student, from Australia, gave me the name and number of this place and told me that they spoke English. Great! I gave them a call. Parla Inglese? Nope. Crap. Okay, I can figure this out. So I begin trying to explain that I’d like an appointment to get waxed. No problem. I want to get a wax from Sophia. She tells me that there isn’t a Sophia working there. Shoot. I hang up and read my text message again. Oh, Sonia. I call back. Yup me again. I ask for an appointment with Sonia. Sure, no problem. Today? Sure but only because that is easier to agree to than trying to negotiate for another day. Oh, and I want to somehow tell you that I don’t just want a bikini wax, I need my legs waxed too. I ask her to wait a minute while I look up the word in my dictionary. Got it – Gamba. I tell her that I need to have my legs waxed. She bursts into a fit of giggles. Crap. No? That’s not right. She tells me she understands in between giggles and says she’ll see me at 3pm. Oh well, I’ll just explain with hand gestures when I get there.
I ask for the location. I get bits and pieces of where they are located and I have an appointment booked for 3pm. I get off the phone and realize that (a) I only have part of the name of the salon and (b) they didn’t ask for my name to book the appointment. I’m thinking that they either think I’m not going to show up or that they just put down “American” in the schedule book next to 3pm. I pull out my map and look for this piazza near Piazza di Spagna where the salon is supposed to be. I’m hoping that between the letters and words she gave me, I can figure out where this place is located. I find it. Yeah. I make my way to the salon and when I get there the woman from the phone greets me and tells me she spoke with me this morning. She takes me to Sonia. Sonia is great, and also doesn’t speak English so I get to practice more Italian. She does a great job and asks if I want anything else waxed. Oh yeah! Eyebrows, please! She comes over and begins tweezing. OUCH! This is what they did to me in Beirut. What about waxing the eyebrows? My hair is so thick that each hair that is pulled out feels like a small tree with roots down to my sinuses. The good news is that she finishes quickly. I’m in and out of there in 30 minutes.
Friday night was a little last hurrah with some fellow students. Dinner and drinks and hit the clubs with the kids. I’ve got lots of sightseeing to do over the weekend and the weather is supposed to finally be AMAZING.