Jan. 18, 2007

Today we went to the Vatican real early. It was pretty cool, but really really long. Our tour was 3 and 1/2 hours long and while yes, there are a million things to see, I feel as though 3 and 1/2 hours is a really long time to pay attention, walk and be starving. Anyways, it was cool. After the Vatican we were all walking to find some place yummy to eat and this guy on the street was like "come eat here! lasagna, spaghetti or pizza with a drink and salad for 9 euros!!!" so we were all like SWEET and we followed. When we got in there, unfortunately, I remembered that I don't like lasagna, and I don't really like spaghetti either, and I really wasn't in the mood for pizza. So, Heather and Kalli and I all ended up ordering from the regular menu that was more expensive. I ended up getting spaghetti al pesto, Heather got gnocchi, and Kalli got an orange and an apple. We got that and bread and 2 sodas and a water and it came out to 39 euros....WHAT....and then the waitress was like "no that doesn't include anything for me" and we were like um well it's 39 euros, we don't have any more money, so we gave her like a euro - it was just all in all a ridiculous experience. We definitely got ripped off and we knew it, so I guess it happens to the best of us. After the ridiculously expensive lunch, we went to see these girls' apartment from our program, and then Laura and Heather and I started to walk home. We were looking for "gruccie" aka hangers and we asked EVERYONE and their mother where we could find them and they had no idea what we were talking about. So we finally end up going to this random men's clothing store that I actually thought was a dry-cleaner's at first, and I asked where I could buy hangers and the really nice man was like "here you go!" and he gave me a hanger! So, I explained that I need to know where to get them because I need a lot more and he ended up giving me all the extra ones he had (like 5 or so) and then the shop next door did the same thing! So that's fun! Then I asked how to say hanger in italian and he said "gruccia" so I got really confused because no one knew what I was talking about when I'd say gruccia or gruccie (gruccie is plural), and he told me that "gruccia" is italian and "stampelo" (I think that's what it was) is Roman - so apparently...there's a difference. Who knew. After that we found this store that had really cheap basic stuff, everything but cheap hangers (3 for 1,30), and we got little baskets to hold our shampoo and stuff, candles with little plates to put them on, plates to put our flowers on that we bought the other day, and a couple sets of hangers. It all came out to like 9 euro. We left that store and went back home and we ended up going food shopping and then I started getting ready to go out with everyone. At that point Mom called and told me that the police found Joe's body and that he was dead, so that kind of put me in a not going out mood. So, instead, Heather and Lindsay and I went out and tried to find an Enoteca (wine bar) to go and sit and have a drink at. The one we knew of that we thought we'd go to ended up being closed, so we went down the side street next to it and ended up finding this adorable little "italian" bar where we were literally the only Americans. We bought a bottle of wine and sat down and just split it between the three of us and chatted all night. These guys sat down at the table next to us later on in the night and they were pretty funny. The main guy's name was Angelo and they all had a fun time trying to pronounce our names. They got my name pretty quickly and said "OHHHHHHHH saaaaadaaaaaaa" and then when they got to Heather they were like "OHHHHHHH eterrrr" because they don't have the "h" sound like we do, in Italian. It was funny - they were like "what are your names? we're going to Bari, come with us!" All in all, it ended up a wonderful night, and we decided we're not going to tell anyone about it because we want to keep it as our little secret meeting spot.