Saturday Morning Shout Out

Ciao, amici!

I just wanted to say a quick hello as I'm currently busy making brunch and finishing a presentation for my Genius of Florence class Wednesday.

There hasn't been much to report on this week. April is certainly living up to it's name - it rained maybe two days in my first three months in Italy, but ever since April 1, it's been rain every single day.

The nice thing about a rainy day in Italy is that, like in Pa. and Ohio, the day rarely seems to fully commit to its weather. It's pouring one minute and sunny the next. But the general mood of April has been gray, gray, gray.

Because of this, we've kept inside most of the week, venturing out only for classes.

We did have one exciting bit of news Wednesday. Erika and I walked home together from Genius while Bethany went with Kevin to pick up some things she left at his apartment.

About twenty minutes after Erika and I got home, our front door opened and Bethany shouted, "Look who I brought home with me!"

When I heard her come in, I assumed she was with Kevin, but since he's often at our apartment, I realized that couldn't be it.

Turns out Bethany's parents flew in to surprise her. They had been planning to go on a cruise this summer for their anniversary and decided to come visit Bethany instead.

It was a shock for all of us except Kevin who has known for weeks that they were coming. He probably should have told me and Erika though, since he gave Bethany's parents our street name but not our apartment number. So her parents walked up and down our street for two hours while we were in class, looking for Bethany and asking every girl they saw who looked like an American college student if she knew Bethany. They also rang doorbells at all the apartments (although they either didn't ring our's or they rang while we were in class).

Anyhow, they're here now and they're staying until Monday. Bethany was booked to go to the Amalfi Coast this weekend, but she cancelled so that she could spend time with her parents and take them to Rome.

I haven't seen much of Bethany or her parents since they got here because they've been out sightseeing, so Erika and I have had the apartment to ourselves the past few days.

We watched "The Hunger Games" on Erika's laptop Thursday night (it was really good, but I would have appreciated it more in a theater... students in Italy can't be choosers). We've also been spending a lot of time dancing around the apartment, listening to "All American," which just dropped Tuesday, so I'm back on a Hoodie Allen kick. I've successfully gotten half our CCI family converted to the Hoodie Mob and it feels pretty good.

Last night we did spend some time with Bethany's parents. They were nice enough to take us to John Lennon's for dessert and pay for both Erika and me. Her parents are both very shy and quiet, so this was the first time I've actually talked to them besides a "Hey, how are you?"

Aside from that and classes, I've been catching up on all the homework I haven't done yet this semester. I did six journal entries for Fabrizio, eight for Fabio, a paper for Francesca, an article for Flo'N The Go magazine, a packet for Gloria, and a Prezi presentation for Fabrizio. The last one was fun to gather material for. I'm doing a presentation on the Dante Plaques, plaques placed around Firenze bearing quotes from Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy." Since I love Dante, this was a really enjoyable project as I wandered around Firenze all day yesterday taking photos of the plaques and of the many other buildings, sculptures, inscriptions, street names, store names, restaurants, and other artifacts paying tribute to the poet they exiled 700 years ago.

BUT *drumroll*

Moving on from Italy, I am currently three hours away from meeting Eva at the train station for our trip to the Pisa Airport from which we will be taking a plane to LIVERPOOL.

That's right, I will be spending the next three days in Liverpool, hometown of my beloved Beatles (and also of the Titanic, but we'll hit that iceberg when we get to it). I'm so excited!!!! My level of emotion right now is so high that I've basically flatlined on the excitement front. I'm numb. I don't know what to do right now. I've just been flitting around the apartment listening to "Please Please Me" (the album, not just the song) and trying to accomplish random things. Like packing, eating, and finishing this Prezi show.

We'll be arriving around 8 p.m., then heading straight to a club where Eva's friend Kev's band is playing. So I'll be spending my first night in Liverpool, in a club, listening to live music by a Scouse band. I can't even.

And of course we booked a Beatles tour of Liverpool and we'll be spending plenty of time at the Cavern Club. And we're staying in a hotel in Merseyside, so Eva and I will literally be walking the very streets and hanging out in the same places the Beatles did when they were our age. I don't know what to do. There is so much emotion right now. I'll probably just cry like I did in Cinque Terre, but worse since I'll be sitting in Strawberry Field eating four of fish after visiting Mendips.

Okay, I'm going to go freak out some more. I'll catch you all Wednesday when I have a tan from standing in the English rain.