Lazy Weekend

The past couple of days have been slow. We've had a couple of things to do every day but it's also been pretty chill. Yesterday we slept later than intended (which is always enjoyable - the forbidden sleep is the best sleep) and eventually made it to the barbecue at the university which started at 11. I think we showed up at 1. Whoops. It was really enjoyable, though! We got to meet and socialize with other university students which was really eye-opening, I hadn't fully processed that there are more university students than just the students who are in the same program I am. In addition to meeting everyone, we were also able to sign up for extracurriculars and clubs. Aaaaand since it was a barbecue, naturally there was cookout food, and not just any cookout food, but American cookout food: hamburgers. What a wonderful taste of America! The rest of the day was rounded out with a good measure of leisurely walking, napping, and just relaxing.

Today, we tried again to get up ealy aaaand failed, again. We had planned to leave the apartment at 8 for the Sunday open air flea market of Porta Portense. All of our alarms went off at 7:30, but naturally none of us got up. None of us wanted to be the one to get everyone else up. Around 8:15 one of our friends from downstairs rang our bell because she was coming with us. Ironically, she thought we had left, but we were still asleep. So when she rang, we got up, finally got moving, and actually made it to the market by 9:30. Whoops. But the market itself was wonderful! Of course it was made up of your tacky vendors with a few good ones thrown in for good measure, but the best part was the atmosphere. It was just so Italian. Everywhere you turned vendors were yelling at you in Italian "regazze, regazze, belle regazze!" or "saldi! saldi!" It was just delightful! My only purchase of the day was a towel, but a much needed towel. The towels we were provided (one per person) were less than sufficient. But there was so much more than that and I have no doubt that we'll be going back for many weeks to come! I spent the rest of the day relaxing, doing wash, and preparing for the first day of classes tomorrow! Eeeep!!!

Let's hope it all goes well!
Ciao!