a blog about cultural differences

The old Fascist Aqueduct

Today wasn’t too horrible. I discovered that in the instance that I leave extremely late from my house, I can get to the CIEE office in about 13 minutes. I left at 10:45 today for my class at 11. It was the fastest bike ride of my life, I think. Thankfully, the traffic was forgiving. I was the second one to arrive to class, and had to explain to Michaela that yesterday (when we were at the Pinoteca for Art History), although Caroline had brought my homework packet to give to me, she had to leave early and even though she left it on the table, she didn’t mention it to me and therefore I didn’t see it and I didn’t get it. And wasn’t able to complete my homework. After asking me about the rest of my weekend and how I felt after being sick on Monday, she declared that she could write a book about my life.

I didn’t have much for lunch today, because I only had an hour and a half (to read and eat), so I had cinnamon hot chocolate and a pastry from Spisani–because that normally will fill me up. Apparently, not if I have coffee, which I did in order to stay awake during contemporary history today. This was a mistake. I had a cappucino right before class, and a caffè macchiato at the break we had at 4pm. I didn’t start to feel like I’d had an overdose of caffeine until we took a tour of facist buildings built around Ferrara, about an hour before class ended. Class actually wasn’t that bad today, because two students had about 35 minute presentations each–and it’s definitely easier to understand the material when our peers talk about it rather than when she does. After the presentations, we read aloud about two cases of facist censorship of novels, which was pretty interesting, and then went on the facist buildings tour, which included the post office and the old aqueduct. The old aqueduct (aka the monument) is now a “family center,” which I think means daycare. Anyways, all of these parents were hanging around while their kids were running every which way in the plaza and on the monument. We were walking up the ramp to see the building, and this one little girl, about… 4 years old, I’d say, just looks up at us from about 10 feet away, jumps up and down while waving her arms, and shouts, “Ehi! CIAO!” It was the cutest thing I’d seen in my life. (We all of course responded back with “Ciao!”)

After class, I called Kelsey to meet me in the center to go in search of food to help with my caffeine overdose–and we ended up purchasing crepes… with nutella. While easily the messiest snack I have ever eaten, it was totally worth it. They were absolutely amazing. I got home around 7:20, and proceeded to show Luciana how to play M*A*S*H (the game you probably played as a little kid that “predicted” who you were going to marry and the exact circumstances that your future held), and her first experience wasn’t so great–she ended up living in an apartment in London with her ex-boyfriend and 10 kids. At 8, we went to Ristorante 99, a pizzeria close by to have a “family” dinner with CIEE–they organized this so all of the students and families could eat together. What ended up happening was the students and the families were forced to sit at two different tables, which was a bummer, because we really don’t need any more excuses to talk in English. And I wanted to meet some other people’s families. And Luciana and Maria were sitting in a really awkward end of the table, and they looked really bored, and I felt bad for them. We left around a quarter to 11 to pick up Giuseppe from driving school (I guess to earn some points back on his license… can’t remember how he lost them). I didn’t end up going to bed really late in order to finish some homework–and now here I am, 10 minutes before having to leave for class… oops.

A dopo!