Day Twenty.

Hey everyone!

Today we all woke up early and made it to the boys' apartment by 8:30. Then we walked to a part of town we haven't been to yet and went into the Ferrero Roche auditorium building. A man came and talked to us about the famous Alba writer Beppe Fenoglio who is known worldwide for his novels on partisan life during the Italian Resistance in WWII. His most famous book, The Twenty-Three Days of the City of Alba, is very well known and is even translated into English. He died of lung cancer very young (40) and only became really famous after death so no much is known about his life. Another of his books, Partisan Johnny, was made into a movie and we watched that for the rest of the time period. I really enjoyed it. It was boring at parts but that reflected the boredom the partisans felt as they sat around, wanting to fight but not properly prepared to do so. They had the will but the Nazis were just too strong and numerous to really fight against. So there was a lot of hiding and waiting. It was a good movie.

Afterward we went to lunch at the Mensa and then came back to the apartment for a little while before going to Italian class. We're still working on the present and present perfect tenses. Today we got a worksheet to self-test ourselves on what we learned. I think I did pretty well but the worksheet provides you with more information than the quizzes do. We have another quiz on Thursday.

After Italian, Jordan, Erin and I stopped by the grocery store to pick up toilet paper and fabric softener. Exciting stuff. Then we all hung out calling people on Skype and doing our little "errands" of the day. Some people went to the gym. Joanna and I booked the last leg of my Sicily flight and we booked the hostel. I'm staying 5 nights and she's staying 4 (I have to arrive the day before because of flights and pricing and such). We'll share a double room and a bed but we get a private suite so it'll be nice. Really close to the beach. Oh! And Trapani has a huge Easter procession where people carry religious statues around the town for 24 hours. Should be exciting. Apparently the procession is a famous event. I still have to iron out my plans a little. I have 10 days and I'll only be with Joanna in Trapani for 5 of them.

We were hungry early so we went to La Duchessa. Also, most of our eateries are closed on Mondays so we only had two choices and La Duchessa won. I had a normal margherita pizza and then fresh pineapple slices for dessert. Yum!

We came back home after dinner and watched Mean Girls together. Tomorrow is Laura's birthday AND Fat Tuesday so we're partying. We have reservations for all 9 of us at Vin and Dan has arranged for a "surprise" since he can't be there for dinner. Then I think we're going out to a bar or something to celebrate. I just know everyone wants to get wasted. So that will be something different. I'll let you all know how it goes.