italia

well, they say knowing spanish helps with italian. and there are a lot of cognates, but it didn't help me much. fortunately, i had my (taller) little sister interpreter with me. the trip was good. very very good. aside from hangovers and allergies i have no complaints. wine was drunk, spaghetti was consumed, sights were seen, asses were made (of ourselves), and now i can hardly contain my anticipation for holidays, just so i can see lou again.

there are many stories to be told, but i will stick to my favorite for now: lou, her friends and i were at a gelateria one evening, drinking wine. we had also had wine with dinner. and lunch. this was probably the 7th or 8th bottle of the day. the five 20 year olds and myself finished the bottle and determined ourselves too drunk to order another, so we headed out the door. they headed off in another direction, and lou and i with our trusty map headed toward what we thought was home. we ended up near the river (the opposite direction), and were rather confused. lou decided she had contained herself long enough, and let it loose, as she seems to be doing more often these days. after the quick pit stop, we headed back the opposite direction, hoping to start over from our original gelateria. but we couldn't even find that. fortunately after roaming in circles for about 10 minutes we came across a taxi stand. we hopped in and after 3 minutes in the cab were at the front door. 5 euro got us home. of course by this point lou had the giggles (which were contageous) and we probably woke up everyone in the hall. it was a good night, but the hangover wasn't really worth it. i'm getting old. that never used to happen!