04-Feb-2006

Today and yesterday were both pretty mellow days. I paid the rent, did a lot of hanging out at the market and worked on more volunteer stuff.

In my Italian Culture class we have to do a group project on some aspect of Italian culture. My group is doing shopping and specifically I am focusing on open market shopping. Since I enjoy going to the market just to see it, I think it’ll be a fairly easy assignment.

Today I ran into a few random people. On the way to pay my rent this morning a guy on the bus totally knew magically that I was a student and started asking me about how I liked Torino and beautiful things in Torino that I had to do. Another guy in the market spoke English with me for a good 10 minutes. Mostly about how the best way to learn a language was to be surrounded by it and talked about his own experience learning English.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to catch an early train to Milano. Hopefully I’ll get to see the painting of “The Last Supper” and do some other cool things. I have to do some more reading before I go to bed tonight so I can figure out what I want to see in the city.

I also went to the pharmacy (farmacia) and tried to figure out my stupid disease. I got some pills, of which I can’t read the box nor the instructions, and the lady told me to take one a day in the evening. So far I’ve taken one and I don’t feel like its taking immediate action. Hopefully within a day or two I’ll see a change.

Monday starts the last week of Italian I, and then it’s onto Italian II after the Olympics. My friend Al will arrive next Saturday and plans to do some traveling with me as well as hang out for the Olympics. Sounds like we’re going to have a pretty good time. I am in charge of planning the travel destination, which I am also working on. Geez, I’m such a busy kid… ttfn.