where they make the cheese!

Another excellent weekend!
On Friday, the entire BC program went to Verona for the day, which I was looking forward to but turned out to not be that fun, mostly because I was very frustrated with the people who were leading us around. Caterina, our coordinator, was in the US at BC and couldn't come with, so she had a couple of our Italian teachers accompany us, and they were just very disorganized and not fun to follow around a city. Despite that, highlights include: Juliet's balcony (which has a statue of Juliet that you are supposed to rub her boob for good luck, which I did not do...and then got POOPED on by a PIGEON!), delicious pastries for lunch, and...yeah it was a fine day. Oh well.

From Verona, a couple of us ventured on to Venice, which was MUCH MORE satisfactory. We got in around dinner time on Friday night but decided to find our hostel first. The hostel was unmarked, as many hostels are, but the weirder thing was that even though all 7 of us booked together we wanted different rooms...and these different rooms were in different buildings. Okay. As the manager guy was giving us our key he told us that for breakfast we had to come to the main hostel place and ask for a ticket and then bring that to the Chinese restaurant down the block and we'd eat there. Obviously.

We found a place to eat that was pretty cheap -- I had spicy pasta, one boy in our group had CUTTLEFISH, and the waiter kept making eyes at us. HOORAY! That was really fun (not the creepy waiter) and it was good to sit after our travels.

Jeff's cousin is studying with Wake Forest in Venice, so we went to the house that all the Wake kids stay, eat, and have class in (which seems really weird now that I think about it). The house was soooooo nice it was ridiculous. They were all very nice and welcoming, and DAVE PREDICTED THE SCORE of the BC/Wake game that happened yesterday! HE GOT IT ON THE NOSE. It was awesome.

We got lost going back because Venice is essentially a maze in Disneyland (it is impossible to comprehend that people live there and that it is a real place to live) but finally found our hostel and went to sleep. The next morning we were saddened to find out that our breakfast was NOT at the Chinese restaurant (it was actually closed), but at a bar next door. Alas.

WE WALKED AROUND ALL OF VENICE ON SATURDAY. Here are some things we saw: Rialto Bridge, San Marco Square (where Dave, Steph and I went up the elevator on the belltower, and I had an adventure with pigeons. San Marco is infamous for the ridic amount of pigeons that hang out there, and all these sketchballs come up to you and shove food in your hand so the pigeons land on you and take a picture. We didn't have any interaction with any of those people but I was hungry and wanted to eat the bread I brought, but every time I took the bread out pigeons were like "WHOA HEY THERE KRISTIN" and I got scared. I threw a bebe piece far away from me to get them away and they SWOOPED like swooping things and ate that thing up in miliseconds. So I decided to throw the entire loaf of bread at them to see what would happen, if it would be like piranhas in the movies. So after some dodging of pigeons to get the windup, I CHUCKED that loaf of bread and pigeons got mad excited, but then a seagull was like "AHA I am so huge and terrifying this bread is MINE" and scared off all the pigeons. And then a man picked up my bread and broke it up and threw some more. The end), we went on a waterbus, and basically saw adorable streets and canals, saw all the Murano glass we could bear to see, and Steph and I had these AMAZING pastries that were more than delicious. SO GOOD.

We caught a train back at 7. The train was supposed to last for 3.5 hours, but we spent the first hour just being happy and talking. We only had one ticket, and the thing said we would get to Parma via 4 other cities. We stopped in Bologna and everybody and their moms got off. We started looking around, wondering if this was the last stop, but that wouldn't make sense because every other time we've taken trains and had to switch we have gotten 2 tickets. So obvi we wouldn't switch for this either. Jeff and Dave got off the train and checked a schedule, seeing that there was another train that would get us to Parma, and they suggested we get off. We were going to gather stuff and get off when the train started moving again, so we figured we would figure everything out in the next station. However, the train never gained momentum and it soon became evident that the train was not going anywhere but instead going to park for the night. Once it stopped, we got all our stuff together and tried to start walking towards the front of the train where the conductor was, because all the doors to get off the train were now locked. It was a very long train and before we got up to where we needed to be all the lights went out. We yelled at someone to hit the Emergency Open lever, and we tumbled off the train. There was a creepy man standing near the front of the train and we walked quickly away from him, towards the real station. Steph stopped because she thought she left her wallet on the train. Erin and I booked it so fast to the platforms, and managed to not get hit by any trains passing by. We finally got on a train to Parma, and the rest of the night was uneventful. It was one of the more scary things I've experienced in Italy...being stuck on a train with no way out and no one going up and down the cars to check. GOOD TIMES.

This morning we met up and went to a little Christmas festival in the streets of Parma -- it was so cute! We had free samples of cheeses and salamis, and saw all these Christmassy gadgets. Very very cute! Also, everyone in Parma is so nice. We had a bad experience with a mean bus ticket issuer in Venice, so it was good to be back in a place where people actually smile.

AND THEN!
After that we headed to the Villa around 12 and started cooking for our THANKSGIVING EXTRAVAGANZA! A bunch of kids decided we wanted a Tgives feast because we're all travelling (or having people visit <3) on Thursday, so we each made something. Jeff made pieces of turkey and a whole chicken, stuffing from scratch, a pumpkin pie and an apple pie; Nate made mashed potatoes; Steph and I made cookies and I brought the biggest loaf of bread I have ever seen (that I bought at the Christmas market earlier); Erin made broccoli and green beans; Dave made a Canadian chili that was delish; and we had vino. Steph and I made placecards for everyone (I drew turkeys on them!) and we had a HUUUGE table in Nate's kitchen. It was SO CUTE and SO FUN to spend hours cooking together and then having a FEAST. We have SOOOOOOO MANY leftovers...the entire chicken and a ginormous pot of mashed potatoes. Round two is tomorrow. But it was great, we listened to Christmas music and felt very holidayesque.

So! Short week this week -- we have hot chocolate with Caterina tomorrow night and I think we're watching Christmas movies on Tuesday, and then Wednesday DANIEL COMES TO PARMA and life will be magical. Also, I used Steph's computer to upload a lot of pictures, so check out the webshots!

Love to all, hope life is wonderful!