Then on Saturday I had volunteered to help UNICEF, which ended up consisting of me and another girl selling handmade dolls on one of the main shopping streets in town. It was really fun because everyone had high Christmas spirits and were happy to help UNICEF by buying dolls as presents. It was really cold, but the main guy in charge bought us hot chocolate and there were cute firefighters who helped us set up and tear down the tables. I met a new friend, the girl I was working with, Maureen. First I found out she's American, then I found out she's from Burlingame, then I found out that she went to high school with Martino (the crazy tall guy who was my punka!). What a piccolo mondo we live in!
After that was finished I ran back home on frozen feet and Ian came over and we ate the rest of the tortelloni I made for him and I before heading off with Sarah to A Christmas Concert at the Evangelical church that our study center told us about. It was outside of centro so we had to take a bus, but the concert was sooo worth it! It turned out the the carolers are from Massachusetts but they were invited here because the pastor started the Bologna Evangelical church branch off of their church back in Massachusetts. So all the carols were sung in English, and the whole presentation was conducted in both languages, and it was just a really neat blend of the two cultures. We met and talked with lots of different people afterwards, while enjoying American Christmas sugar cookies! It was a lovely time...I even met a lady with a newborn baby who's American (from Colorado) but lives here now because she met her husband studying abroad. I told her that's exactly what my mom tells me I'm not allowed to do! Hehe...So then on the way home, our bus was ambushed by the bus ticket checker police guys which sucked because I hadn't bought a ticket that time and so we had to get off and talk with the guys. However, we ended up getting a really nice ticket checker man who gave Sarah and I a joint ticket (I think it's because we're both short and thus equal only one full person) so we each only had to pay 20 Euro, which is nothing. And so finally we got home and went next door to the boy's apartment for Gio and little Alessandro's birthday party! It was a really good time because I knew about 95% of the people at the party. Unfortunately, our landlady called the carabinieri on us and so we were forced to shut down the party really early, at about 1:30. It made me feel like I was back in the dorms or something. Anyways, so between that and the bus thing, I guess I had a lot of run-ins with The Establishment yesterday!
Today, Federica thawed out one of her mom's lasagne and we ate that for lunch...it was soooo yummy. Later this evening, she, Shawn, Sarah, (try to say that three times fast) and I are going to go to mass at the Cathedral, which I'm really looking forward to. So that's my lovely weekend here in Bologna!
1 comment:
And what's even stranger is that I know exactly where Burlingame is... I've been there about 5 times this semester! .. strange... I got really good sandwiches there. Its like 180 degrees of Burlingame or something.
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