Bombs and Baby Jesus

Dicembre 14/15, 2010

Dicembre 14, 2010

Today I "cleaned" my room a bit. I didn't do a full on 'Lela Haus' clean, because I'll have to do that later before I leave, but a good clean. Then I went to Piazza di Spagna to meet everyone for coffee. I was on time, barely after having to get off the bus because they said they were told they couldn't drive into the center. I waited 10 minutes, then found Jelco, then slowly, after an hour, everyone else showed up. Apparently, everyone else had the same trouble with their buses.

We went to au pair central for coffee, aka McD's, and I tried a "special" cafe'... it turned out to be like a caffe flavoured hot pudding with cream on top. Not a fan. I met a friend of Femke's that is also from Finland and she actually works about 3 blocks away from me! We then walked to "Little Big Town", a toy store near Piazza Venezia to find out the whole Piazza was surrounded by police in riot suits. Someone mentioned it was voting day, when Parliament decides if the current Prime Minister would remain in office, Berlusconi. As we were walking to the store we heard some strange bangs from a distance... it turns out there were riots earlier in the day and explosions in Piazza del Popolo. Raffa later told me this. The explosions were 'paper bombs'. I don't know what they are but there apparently were 90 through out the day, so that's what I think we were hearing... I haven't heard of anyone being hurt but it is a frightening concept. Berlusconi narrowly won the vote and will remain the prime minister.

A happier note... in the toy store, we found some fun things... I wanted to buy two teddy bears... both bigger than a VW Beetle, 2900 euro each. I took pictures with them. :)

Dicembre 15, 2010

Today I woke up and was planning on meeting Jelco at Piazza Navonna... I wanted to buy pieces for a presepe of my own. They were all so interesting, there were probably about 10 vendors selling the pieces and I found a set that I liked and bought some... I did my best to limit myself and not buy too much. I knew I wanted baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the 3 Magi, and an angel. This way when I come back I can have something to buy... an on going collection. ;) But I also want to make some of the pieces... all hand made, but not all Italian hand made. Then I went and had a great lunch where the pasta, secondo, tiramisu', and water all cost less than 25 euro, AND it was really good. I met the owners of the restaurant and they were really nice, I decided to buy a bottle of their wine. (I should stop buying things... I still have to get it all in a bag)

When I got home, I watch Nonna Jo help Lavi and Nic with their Italian homework, I learned about superlativo definitivi aggettivi... it is when an adjective describes something to it's maximum. If some thing is the slimiest, crunchiest, tallest, nicest, most elegant...etc. I used this knowledge when Nonna Jo made sausage cannelloni and fritatta tripa (super yummy omlet more or less)... I love eating here... freakin' awesome!!!!!

I then started getting some of my stuff together for my trip on Sunday. I was right, I have a lot of stuff... Dang. I am squishing everything down without trying to break anything... there are some fragile things... but I'm doing my best to protect everything. :)

Ok... caught up. Whoop!

OH!!!!!!! AND ONE OF MY BESTEST FRIENDS BECAME A UNITED STATES CITIZEN TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS Jesús Alejandro Pérez Rementería!!!