ciao, venice

I'm sitting in Casa Artom alone right now and I really think this is a new level of "deathly silent." Even my first night here, I wasn't alone, and I've traveled every weekend thusfar that we were allowed to leave, so I haven't exactly spent a lot of alone time in this house. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to wander around and do what I want without anyone questioning it, but I miss people! Of course in the time I've spent here today by myself (especially as it gets dark out), I've heard every weird sound an ancient palazzo can possibly make. I'm all alone because about 3/4 of the group left last night for our 10 day break and the rest of them left sometime today. I slept in a little this morning, then went with Tom to Piazzale Roma to say goodbye to him as he was leaving for Copenhagen and so I could buy bus tickets for when Mom and Dad get in tomorrow. We had a slight scare when we got almost halfway to Piazzale Roma and he remembered that he left his passport in the house, so he jogged back to get it and then we did the walk again and luckily he made the 11:20 bus. After I said goodbye, I walked to find the right vaporetto station to use tomorrow when we're going from Piazzale Roma to Casa Artom, which brought me to this amazing grocery store called Coop. I wandered around for a while, but settled for just a baguette and jar of pasta sauce to get me through until we leave tomorrow. After I left Coop, I literally spent 2 hours trying to find the port where our cruise will dock. It's deceptive, because you can see the giant ships from practically half the island, but, actually figuring out how to walk to the port is so confusing. I can't complain, though...I had nothing but time today and I got to see quite a few areas behind/around Piazzale Roma that were new to me. By the time I figured it out, I was exhausted, so I walked back to Casa Artom, made myself a perfect little lunch, and curled up in bed to watch a few episodes of good old American TV. After lunch and TV, I headed back out of the house because today was such a beautiful day and ended up walking towards Santa Margherita to buy postcards. Because it was so nice out and I didn't have anything I had to be doing (shhh about the law school apps...), I sat at Bar da Gino and had a cappuccino and wrote postcards, which was relaxing. I came back home and spent some time catching up with my sister, Kristin and Alicia before I decided to finish off a good bit of the food I have here by making penne pasta with pesto and peas, eating salad, and working on the baguette. Now I'm absolutely stuffed and pretty much ready for bed (yes, it's 7:30 pm...).

I'm so tired because yesterday was a marathon day! I went with the students on an Italian art history visit just because there's no reason to sit around the house if I'm not going to work on my essays! Then they had an afternoon exam, so I packed for my trip and had lunch while they crammed. I tried unsuccessfully to nap and woke up really disoriented and in a funky mood, so Kayla and I went for gelato to snap out of it (she'd just finished her exam). I bummed around for a while, then hung out downstairs with Megan, Ana, McKinley, Kayla, Tom, Rhianna, etc as everyone tried to get in some quality time before we all disperse for the break. A bunch of us decided to go out to eat since it was one of our last nights together, and half the group went to San Travaso, but my group went to Ai Cugnai. The crazy little old lady at Ai Cugnai definitely remembered me from last time I was here and was such a hoot...kept trying to tell the girls at the table how young and cute her grandson is and how beautiful we all are. We discovered that their house red wine is practically perfect, especially with the gnocchi bolognese followed by tiramisu. The family who owns Ai Cugnai is relatively familiar with us because we eat there a lot and pass by the restaurant daily, so they were really friendly as we were heading out and I even got a "ciao bella," but we decided to chalk that up to the Italian version of an olive branch! After dinner, almost the rest of the group left on a night train to Munich, so it was just Tom, Jen, Laura, Rhianna, Charlotte, Caroline, David and myself left. A few of us decided to play beer pong for practice (probably not the wisest life decision, but we had nothing to wake up for, really), so Tom, David, Jen, Rhianna, and I spent some quality time in the dining room having fun, chatting, and proving just how competitive we all are. Finally pretty much everyone decided to go to bed except Tom and I, who thought it'd be a genius idea to stay up until 3am hanging out. He and I are in super similar places right now, so it's good to have a little brother of sorts to talk to when we each need to hear "it's going to be fine."

The other days in the week weren't anything too unusual, but that's ok with me...I really like that I've settled in to a routine. I think it's a very Italian notion to not even want to recount every minute of every day, but to just enjoy each day and measure success not by "how much have I done today," but instead by asking myself "did I laugh a lot today? did I have fun?" and if the answer is yes, then it was a successful day. Don't get me wrong, I love a good productive day like today, but I've gotten to the point where I'm not too anxious if I don't have 7 consecutive super-productive days. I am pretty pleased, though, that part of my routine does involve productivity in terms of food...I got to the point where I was eating out way too much, so at the Billa on Sunday, I bought all sorts of stuff so that I could eat in (and with a little more variety than just pesto on everything) and other than eating at Ai Cugnai last night, I've eaten every single meal in this house and for 30 euro for the whole week! I'm so dead tired right now that I have no idea if this little update even makes sense, so I'm going to take a shower and go to bed so that I can fully enjoy the Greece and Croatia adventure that starts tomorrow. I can't wait to see Mom and Dad, I just wish Nina could've visited, too!