il trentuno di agosto

Mi dispiace! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to blog again! Last week was pretty low key. Thursday night we went out to celebrate our last night with the Austrians. Celebrate is an appropriate word. haha. When we let the lady at the bar know that we were celebrating she served us with these hilarious goblets that she told us belonged to Dante Alegheri. Obviously. They're the ugliest things I've ever seen. Later we went to some strange club where there were TVs playing NFL games, and my favorite Italian pop song played http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aN8oZfVd1g&feature=fvst. So outrageous. On Friday the director of our language school and his wife took Spencer, Kristen and I to Lucca, which is a really cute town about an hour and a half away. We walked through some incredible churches and got gellato with them. They are the cutest tiny little Italian couple you can imagine. And yes, this is the aforementioned scary lady with the cane. Obviously my opinion has changed since Siena. Afterward we thought they were taking us back to Firenze so that Spencer and I could meet our friend Anna and catch our train to La Spezia for the night. But we misunderstood Alberto and instead he ended up driving us another hour and a half to La Spezia. It was so absurdly nice of them. And then Kristen had to ride the 3 hours back with them alone... woops. But they dropped us off in La Spezia, which was as shitty of a town as everyone had promised, and Spencer and I checked into our hostel and waited for Anna to arrive. Since she now had to take the train from Firenze by herself. Woops again. But he and I took the train to Riomaggiore (one of the towns in Cinqueterre) and had a very romantic (and drenched) dinner outside by the ocean. I had my first experience with muscoli (mussels) and I liked them quite a bit. This super awkward middle-aged couple from the Netherlands were sitting next to us trying to make friends with us, and they kept laughing at the faces I was making when I was eating the mussels. They taste good, but they are really freakin' gross looking.
The next day we began our beach adventure, and took the train to Monterosso, the same beach where we went last time with the other troops. It was nice. Very uneventful. That night, though, we got a pizza to go from this cute little restaurant and when we were wandering around to find somewhere to eat it we stumbled onto a free outside opera concert in one of the piazzas. It was unreal. This place is incredible.
The next day we decided to go exploring and do a little bit of hiking recommended by my man Rick Steves. (Who is the author of a bunch of goofy travel books, and I can only imagine that he's the biggest goober in the world.) So we started in Riomaggiore and walked the Via Dell'Amore which is a path from one city to the next along a cliff by the ocean. Easily one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Minus all of the tourists. Of which I suppose I am one, but they're annoying. So along this path couples carve their names into the stone or write "Giacomo e Maria per sempre" or "Amore, sei la mia vita, ti amo" or other equally obnoxious things. So my friend Anna and I decided to carve "Anna e Lauren per il momento 2010" into a plant. Which means, "Anna and Lauren for now". It seemed hilarious at the time.

Then we did this incredible walk through a vineyard in Corniglia that gave us the most amazing views we'd had all weekend. Italy is so freakin' beautiful. I can't get over it. And the people at the beach were so friendly. Before we left we had lunch at this cute place by the beach and this Italian couple sitting next to us started talking to us (in Italiano, thank you very much. And we had a conversation with them!) and in the middle of it they asked the waitress to bring more plates so that they could share their food with us. It was hilarious! They were sitting with their friend who introduced himself as "Umbriacco"--which means drunk-- at 3:00 in the afternoon. Solid. And he was one of the most outrageous humans I've ever encountered. He kept calling Spencer "amico gay" and rubbing Spencer's chest. Out of absolutely nowhere.
When I got back Adair had arrived. She's the girl from Holy Cross that's living with me this year. And we had a lovely dinner with Maria Pia. I think the three of us are going to get along very well. Adair eats more than Raffaella did. Which is good, less for me. I say that as I sit here actually feeling my stomach being much larger than it was this time last month. Sweet. I've been trying to run at least 3 times a week, though. Pray for me.
Last night was our friend Marina's last night in her apartment so she invited all of us over for a little party. There was lemoncello involved. It obviously got out of control. To sum it up: at one point we had 4 American students, 3 Japanese 35-year-old women, a German girl, a German boy, a young Italian guy, and an Italian guy who I can only guess was at least 45 all trying to play King's Cup. I'll just say, when it came to "9- pick a rhyme" things got kind of messy. But it was a really good time. And today was our first real day of school with a new group of students. That was exciting.
This has been an outrageously long post. Perhaps I'll be more punctual just to avoid having to type this much at once. And Dad, aspetta, per favore. Scrivero' un post solo in Italiano presto.
Va bene. Vi amo tantissimo!